By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Opportunity, NASA's other Mars rover, has tooled around the red planet for so long it's easy to forget it's still alive.
NASA's surviving Mars rover Opportunity has reached the rim of a 14-mile-wide crater where the robot geologist will examine rocks older than any it has seen in its seven years on the surface of the red planet, scientists said Wednesday.
Months after the death of the Mars rover Spirit, its surviving twin is poised to reach the rim of a vast crater to begin a fresh round of exploration.
Shortly after midnight, NASA sent one last plea to the silent rover Spirit, mired in a sand trap on the surface of Mars.
Spirit, the scrappy robot geologist that captivated the world with its antics on Mars before getting stuck in a sand trap, is about to meet its end after six productive years.
Spirit, the scrappy robot geologist that captivated the world with its antics on Mars before getting stuck in a sand trap, is about to meet its end after six productive years.
Spirit, the scrappy robot geologist that captivated the world with its antics on Mars before getting stuck in a sand trap, is about to meet its end after six productive years.
The prospect of ever hearing from the stuck Mars rover Spirit is fading after it failed to respond to repeated calls from Earth.
Callas, the JPL project manager, said Curiosity has a long way to go to catch up with Opportunity, which has nearly a decade head start on the Martian surface.
"is not like a lander staring at the same real estate. We've gone to different terrains, explored different geology and answered different questions on Mars," said project manager John Callas of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which runs the $984 million project.
