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Posted on March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 by Evan Gough This is the Final Photograph from Opportunity Sad.But beautiful.NASA has shared Opportunity’s final photograph from the surface of Mars. The rover’s final resting place is in Endeavour Crater, and barring any statistically unlikely event, it will sit there for centuries, millennia, or even longer. And instead of a tombstone, we have this final image. The image is a panorama, captured at the end-point of Opportunity’s 15-year, marathon-plus journey. Opportunity’s odometer is now stopped at 28 miles, or 45 kilometers, and its chronometer at 5,111 sols.354 individual images make up...

When Curiosity attempted to come back online after an inactive period — a process it’s completed more than 30 times previously, according to the post — a glitch triggered a “protective safe mode.” Scientists back on Earth are working to forensically reconstruct what happened during the hiccup by downloading a snapshot of its memory. They’re also taking a hiatus from its scientific work — which is frustrating for researchers, Space.com pointed out, because they’d been about to drill an “intriguing rock” about 650 feet from the rover’s current location. “In the short term, we are limiting commands to the vehicle...

Coinciding with the Pit Grave culture (4200-3600 years before our era), coming from Southern Europe, the Neolithic communities of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula started a ceremonial activity related to the sacrifice and burial of dogs. The high amount of cases that are recorded in Catalonia suggests it was a general practice and it proves the tight relationship between humans and these animals, which, apart from being buried next to them, were fed a similar diet to humans'... The study analyses the remains of twenty-six dogs found in funerary structures from four sites and necropolises of the Barcelona region, and has...

NASA's Opportunity rover, the third robotic wanderer to land on Mars, changed our understanding of the Martian landscape, geology, atmosphere and history. On Wednesday, NASA announced its mission complete and with it, the rover's life officially over. The plucky robot roamed the Martian surface for approximately 5,515 Earth days, just over 15 years. During a press conference, NASA said that Opportunity hadn't responded to a last-ditch effort Tuesday to establish contact. A planet-encircling dust storm cut off communications with Opportunity on June 10, 2018, preventing its solar panels from storing power. Since then, over 830 rescue commands had been beamed...

The target of Curiosity's curiosity is nicknamed "Little Colonsay" and it looks like a small nugget. The rover's ChemCam captured a close-up view of the object on Monday. "The planning team thinks it might be a meteorite because it is so shiny," writes Curiosity team member Susanne Schwenzer. "But looks can deceive, and proof will only come from the chemistry." uriosity's ChemCam is a suite of instruments that includes a camera, spectographs and a laser that helps NASA analyze the composition of Martian rocks and soil. The rover is scheduled to investigate Little Colonsay with the ChemCam to determine if...

Nasa robot is still missing and presumed dead on the surface of Mars. Space scientists lost contact with the Opportunity Rover almost two months ago as it was buffeted by a huge dust storm which covered the entire surface of Mars. The swirling maelstrom will have deposited powder onto the solar panels which power the exploration ‘droid, meaning it cannot recharge its battery to make contact with mission control back on Earth. New pictures taken by professional and amateur astronomers in recent days have shown the features of Mars emerge once again as the dust settles. But there’s still no...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's seemingly unstoppable Mars rover Opportunity has been knocked out by a gigantic dust storm that is enveloping the red planet and blotting out the sun. Officials said Wednesday they're hopeful the rover will survive the storm, which already covers one-quarter of Mars and is expected to encircle the planet in another few days. It could be weeks or even months, though, until the sky clears enough for sunlight to reach the Martian surface and recharge Opportunity's batteries through its solar panels. For now, Mars' oldest working rover is stuck in the middle of the raging...

The robot, which has been exploring Mars for almost six years, discovered new organic compounds and cycles of methane that could point to life on Mars. _____________________________________________________________________________ Since 2012, the Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars near a place called Mount Sharp. The robot has found chemical traces that could indicate this place was watery billions of years ago—and could have supported life. NASA can't say whether there ever was life on Mars, but new evidence reinforces the idea that Mars was habitable. NASA's flagship Mars rover, Curiosity, has been combing the surface of Mars for signs of life for...

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has been on the Red Planet for a long, long time. Back in March it tallied its 2,000th Martian day, which is 2,054 Earth days, and despite some drilling woes that have since been solved, the plucky little rover is still cruising along and conducting experiments in the name of science. Now, just days after NASA revealed that its new drilling technique works as planned, the agency is calling for a press conference to reveal something special. As always, the group is tight-lipped about what it has in store, but it will be holding its event...

China has launched a relay satellite to prepare for a lunar rover mission planned for later in the year. The Queqiao spacecraft will establish a communications link between Earth and the landing mission, which looks set to launch in the next six months. The satellite was launched at 22:28 BST on Sunday (05:28 local time) from Xichang launch centre in the country's south-west. It will settle in an orbit about 455,000 km (282,555 miles) from Earth. This orbit will also take it more than 60,000 km from the lunar farside, where China will aim to put down with a lander...

"...On Earth quartz veins indicate past water flow, and also indicate the presence of valuable minerals like gold. What these veins on Mars mean is presently unknown, though I guarantee the Curiosity science team is using the rover to find out everything they can. Almost certainly the veins suggest the past presence of liquid flows, probably water (but I make no promises)."

Summary: Curiosity continues its exploration of Vera Rubin Ridge, including several drilling attempts.Since my February 8, 2018 update, the Curiosity science team has apparently been loath to leave Vera Rubin Ridge... Opportunity is currently halfway down the inside of Perseverance Valley...when the Mars winter ends, Opportunity will begin to move more aggressively.

Curiosity bored a hole about 0.5 inches (1.3 centimeters) deep into a target rock on Monday (Feb. 26), during the trial run of a new, jury-rigged drilling technique, NASA officials said. The car-size rover's drill — a key tool at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm that allows it to snag pristine samples from the interiors of ancient rocks — has been out of commission since late 2016... More than seven months after a malfunction sidelined the rock-boring drill aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, mission team members are still trying to find a solution, or a work-around. On Dec. 1,...

We think you can, Opportunity. An artist's impression of the Opportunity rover on Mars. NASA _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NASA’s Opportunity rover is the longest surviving rover on Mars. On Saturday, February 17, it experienced its 5,000th dawn on a distant planet. It was only scheduled to see 90. But Opportunity's long journey started much earlier, at the height of the space race. With gratitude towards Watty Piper and his beloved Little Engine, we start our story in the early 1960s. NASA is working on multiple fronts, pushing humans toward the Moon for the first time, but also struggling to reach Mars and...

"When the Curiosity Rover was launched onto its nine-month-long journey to the planet Mars on Nov. 26, 2011, the rover carried as one of its many scientific packages a calibration target; a 1909 Lincoln cent. The cent is mounted near the bottom of the target, with its obverse facing outward."

Curiosity remains on Vera Rubin Ridge, though it has begun moving toward the point where it will move down off the ridge. Opportunity remains in Perseverance Valley, though it has finally taken the north fork down.

Jaguar Land Rover will make all its new vehicles available in electric or hybrid models from 2020, it said on Thursday, two months after a similar announcement from Volvo. The JLR group is the latest carmaker to embrace the move away from internal combustion engines in the wake of stricter government proposals after the Paris climate accord. "We will introduce a portfolio of electrified products across our model range, embracing fully electric, plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid vehicles," JLR chief executive Ralf Speth said. Sweden's Volvo is also moving away from internal combustion engines, announcing in July that it plans...

The secret to Curiosity's better brain was a software update sent from the ground in October 2015, called the Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS). This was the first time artificial intelligence had been tried on a remote probe, and the results have shown that similar AI techniques could be applied to future missions, according to the NASA scientists working on the project. AEGIS allows the rover to be "trained" to identify rocks with certain characteristics that scientists on the ground want to investigate. This is valuable because Curiosity's human controllers can't be in direct contact with the rover...

Nasa's Curiosity rover has snapped a photo of a mysterious object on the surface of Mars, which conspiracy theorists believe could be evidence of aliens. The high-definition image appears to show the object glinting against Mars' rocky landscape. While many people believe that the object is made by aliens, others have suggested that it is merely the rover's own entry debris.

NASA says it’s troubleshooting a snag on the Mars rover Curiosity that’s preventing it from moving its robotic arm and driving to another spot. The space agency said Tuesday the problem involves a motor in the rover’s drill that is used to bore into rocks. Curiosity has been taking pictures, but doing little else for the past two weeks.