A new image captured by a high-resolution HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows a small object on the slopes of the Valley of Perseverance. The photo shows the rover as it descends into the Martian Valley, just 100 days after the storm began. The picture was taken when the probe was 267 kilometers above the surface of Mars.
Unfortunately, this storm was one of the few that raised so much dust that it managed to cover most of the surface of the Red Planet and block the flow of sunlight, the main source of power for Opportunity's solar panels. The team of engineers overseeing the rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena has lost contact with the 14-year-old vehicle since June 10.
Some estimates put Opportunity's Tau score (a measure of the amount of sunlight reaching the surface) slightly above 10 during the duststorm. Over the past few months, it has been falling steadily. On Thursday, September 20, when this image was taken, the Tau estimate was estimated at about 1.3 by the Mars Color Imager camera of the MRO probe.
