REAL LIFE NEWS: OPPORTUNITY TRUNDLES A MARATHON
by Hazed
NASA’s Opportunity rover has been trundling across Mars for just over 11 years – rather impressive for a machine built to last for just 90 days. Now it’s clocked up a milestone; it’s odometer has clicked past 26.219 miles, which is the distance of a marathon race.
The assumption of the scientists who designed and built Opportunity was based on what we knew from exploring the moon. It was thought that Martian dust would cling to the solar panels on the rover, which would degrade their ability to keep Opportunity’s batteries charged.
In fact, the rover got a regular cleaning courtesy of the Martian winds, allowing it and its sister Spirit to keep on going for far longer than anyone could have dreamed.
For the past four years, Opportunity has been exploring the rim of a crater called Endeavour, examining the exposed strata for evidence of sedimentary rock. This gives scientists an insight in the geological history of the planet.
It’s not certain how long the plucky little rover will keep going. Spirit conked out in 2009 after it got caught in a sand dune, and now Opportunity’s flash memory is failing. But we can celebrate it completing its marathon. As John Callas, the project manager for Opportunity, said: “This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world. A first time happens only once.”
