Via ScienceNow.org -
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--Spirit and Opportunity are painting a considerably different picture of Mars from what NASA's mission scientists had expected when the twin rovers set down separately on the red planet in January 2004. Designed expressly to look for signs of water, both craft have found such signs in the rocks and soil lying in their paths. But what's surprising and disappointing is the water seems only to have lurked beneath the Martian surface. Lakes, rivers, and oceans seem to have been almost totally absent from the planet's history.
Reporting here today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, members of the Mars Exploration Rover science team declared both machines basically healthy--although Spirit remains partially crippled by a right-front wheel drive motor that failed nine months ago. So far, Spirit has logged 1047 sols, or Martian days, and Opportunity has been operating for 1026 sols. The Mars rovers' project manager, John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, quipped that crossing the 1000-sol threshold created a problem, because the rovers' software was not designed to handle four-digit dates. "But it's a good problem to have," Callas said.
----------------------------
The Mar Rovers were projected to only be going for three months....but they are looking at three years right now. Very cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment