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Mars Probe Probably Lost Forever
David Shiga writes, "NASA's silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft is likely lost forever. The space agency attempted to take a picture of the 10-year-old spacecraft using the newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but did not detect it, either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible. NASA has now ordered its Opportunity rover to listen from the planet's surface for MGS's radio beacon. If that fails, the agency may call on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft to join the search. But MGS may already have run out of power and NASA officials are not optimistic about recovering it."
Did they check Mars? I would bet that it is probably there.
Was that the one crushed by the Decepticons? I don't think we'll be recovering it anytime soon.
...it was obviously captured by aliens.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
A pink rabbit beating a large bass drum was just spotted in the vicinity of Mars. Communications with the Mars Probe are expected to resume momentarily... ;)
"Nature bats last..."
"either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible"
So either it wasn't there or it was there but they didn't see it. I think that has to pretty safe to say they have limited the problem down considerably.
:(){
Why are humans, a plague on this planet, trying to gain dominion over the others?
If God had meant us to fly, he'd have given us rocket engines, day one.
(Yes, tongue is firmly in cheek.)
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Continual probing of a heavenly body for almost 10 years? Beats my record by a long shot.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
This is what happens when you believed the hype and put the cheaper Radio Shack Energizer Bunny batteries in your mission critical apps way back then...
NASA was trying to cut costs by using off the shelf components. Unfortunately, UPS does not deliver replacement batteries to their current location ;)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious spacecraft. You will surrender or you will die. Sycorax strong! Sycorax mighty! Sycorax rock!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
What really got my eye was how they just 'asked' Opportunity to listen for it. That is, that those things are so dynamic in what they do and can be 'asked' to do simply amazes me.
Well, they did say please...
I personally think it's all gone downhill since that whole silly "multicellular" craze. Phffft.
Alternatively, maybe it just had a Sony battery... Have any flashes of light or smoke been spotted above Mars recently ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Luckily one of the engineers realised that if Opportunity was to bounce an inverse-polarity tachyon beam through the fifth phase of a quantum singularity, it might be possible to convert Opportunity's deflector dish into a scanning-tunnelling pulse wave detector.
From the Associated Pres news:
"We have gathered information from inside NASA, that during the last minutes of contacts the Mars Global Surveyor sent out an encrypted message. After a grueling three hours trying to decrypt the message, top scientists at NASA was startled to see what appears to be a message from semi-intelligent beings. It reads 'How are you gentlemen!! All your base are belong to us.' Then the MGS went silent.
Governments of the United States and Western Europe have moved to take of every zig. Although it is widely believed that we have no chance to survive make our time, the scientists insist that we must indeed move zig.
God help us