Photo from NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover Open Source 41.9 kilometers on the surface of the mysterious Red Planet and to break the record of the passed distance among the rovers. Before the record belonged to the Soviet Lunokhod-2, which overcame 39 kilometers on the surface of the moon.
“Opportunity” and its identical rover “Spirit” began studying Red planet back in 2004. They should have found evidence that in the distant past on Mars (as well as on our blue planet) there was water. There were huge oceans of water on Mars. Having discovered evidence of once vivifying the planet moisture rovers continued to further explore Mars.
“Spirit” lost contact with the Earth in 2010, and his “twin brother” was able to survive the Martian winter and is still successfully “runs” on a cold planet. Now, however, “Opportunity” there were problems with the mechanical arm and flash memory, but experts hope to eliminate them in the coming weeks by rebooting programs.
Even if in the future the rover does not stop communicating with Earth and finally will not break, to continue this White House research mission decided not to allocate in 2016 cash. So the fate of the rover lonely roaming Mars not comforting.
Photo from open sources
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