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Mars Probe May Have Spotted Sojourner Rover

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the born-free-as-free-as-the-wind-blows dept.

Maggie McKee writes "NASA's eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have spotted the tiny, toaster oven-sized Sojourner rover just a few meters away from its companion, the Mars Pathfinder lander. It appears to have crawled there in an attempt to re-establish contact with the lander after the lander had already died. But the pictures aren't clear enough to definitively ID the rover, and it's possible Sojourner simply took off on its own. If it were miraculously still alive after 10 years, it could be 3 kilometers away from Pathfinder — and probably impossible to find, even with MRO."

17 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. I spy by metlin · · Score: 4, Funny

    I spy with my litle eye something that starts with S.

    SOJOURNER? Yay!

  2. Rover by master_kaos · · Score: 5, Funny

    Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Come Over

  3. HTML version of Sojourner pic by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 5, Funny

    .

    ;-)

  4. Dad .. Dad ???? by UberHoser · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry, the image of the little one crawling to it's dad after a crash.. kinda choked me up ....

    --
    Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
    1. Re:Dad .. Dad ???? by chrisb33 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I thought the same thing... poor little guy, trying to nuzzle under the lander like Simba in the Lion King. Now all we need is for Spirit and Opportunity to come over and sing "Hakuna Matata!"

  5. Batteries not included by jank1887 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Was anyone else reminded of the scene when the one robot finds the other one after the guy hit it with an axe? Poor little robot...

  6. Rovers are signs of intelligent life! by BubbaFett · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is Mars so boring now that we're just sending things there to look at other things we've sent there?

  7. wow, this is actually kind of sad.... by mdm-adph · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...in a dorky kind of way.

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  8. Hi Martians! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm a little robot.
    I'm a little robot who is lost.
    I'm a little robot who is lost from Earth.
    If I'm a little robot who is found, please call the interstellar hot line 1-800-LOSTROBOTS.

  9. Callous and heartless by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 4, Funny
    So when contact with the lander, which was designed to last one month, was lost after three months, ground controllers were not sure what became of Sojourner.
    What callous monsters these NASA people are! Poor Sojourner was left to wander around with no means of communicating back home, while dying a slow and lonely death. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes as I read that story.
    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    1. Re:Callous and heartless by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Poor Sojourner was left to wander around with no means of communicating back home, while dying a slow and lonely death.

      It will meet up with Spirit and together they will party and have children. They are the Adam and Eve of Mars. 6000 years from now billions of robots will read about them in Genesis of the Mars Bible. But the Mars evolutionists will insist Sojourner evolved from toasters and staplers instead of having a Creator (JPL).

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  10. Two probes enter by Cylix · · Score: 2, Funny

    One probe leaves...

    --
    "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
  11. HOLY CRAP by everphilski · · Score: 4, Funny

    ;-)

    is that a face I see on Mars?

  12. Stop wasting this technology on other planets by Alzheimers · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're spending all this money so we can spot a lost robot millions of miles away, so why can't we point it back at earth and help me find my KEYS!

    GAAAAH!

  13. That's because you crazy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    That's because you crazy: (see link for more details)

    http://www.ineedcaffeine.com/unboring.php

  14. Re:The ultimate scavenger hunt by pluther · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's actually only a $49.00 coffee table. The rest is Ikea's home delivery charge.

    --
    If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
  15. not a spacecraft... by dosle · · Score: 2, Funny

    that's not a sojourner, it's a SCHOONER!