The Spirit Rover had a small quantity of dust blown off its solar panels earlier this year, but nothing like the blessing bestowed on the Opportunity this week. A huge gust of wind (on a planet whose atmosphere is about 1%of earth's) has cleared so much dust that Opportunity now has 40% more solar energy, and is heading toward the huge Endeavor crater, having already travelled 15,000 meters. Go, little fella...
Wow, the Mars Rovers have truly been worth every penny. It amazes me that their still plugging along way out there on Mars, still sending us data about that planet. NASA done good.
ReplyDeleteThe shadow looks like WALL*E :)
ReplyDelete