Heroic rover dies
Tears as Mars bot set to run 90 days fails after 15 yrs.
“Opportunity” knocks but once.
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, the groundbreaking device that defied expectations in its findings and endurance on the Red Planet, has reached the end of its journey.
The space agency pronounced Opportunity dead Wednesday, eight months after it fell silent when a planet-wide dust storm blanketed its terrain. The last attempt to communicate with the Rover happened Tuesday.
In its 15 years of service, well-outlasting its planned 90-day missions, Opportunity made astounding discoveries that helped scientists better understand the history of Mars.
Opportunity’s findings confirmed that water once flowed through parts of Mars and, in turn, could have possibly been a habitable environment. The rover also witnessed the first meteorite ever to be discovered on another planet.
Among its other contributions to scientists, Opportunity sent back a slew of breathtaking images of Martian craters and a “dust devil,” a swirling column of wind and dust that can reach a height of 5 miles.
The device made history in 2015 when it broke the record for extraterrestrial travel by driving more than 28 miles.
Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004 with its “adventure twin” Spirit, which got stuck in soil in 2009 and officially ended its mission in 2010, according to NASA.
Tanya Harrison, director of research at Arizona State University’s NewSpace, tweeted Tuesday about the emotional “last ever commands” sent to Opportunity Tuesday night.
“There was silence. There were tears. There were hugs. There were memories and laughs shared,” she wrote along with the hashtags “Thank you, Oppy” and “Goodnight, Oppy.”
The rover was created “to be the mechanical equivalent of a geologist walking from place to place,” NASA said. It featured 5-feet high cameras and 360-degree two-eyed, humanlike views of the terrain.