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Mars Winds Clean Spirit's Solar Panels Again

Posted by timothy on from the like-mom-making-the-bed dept.

Titoxd writes "In a blast from the past, NASA reports that Spirit's solar panels have received a much-needed cleaning courtesy of the Red Planet. The report states, 'The cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply by about 30 watt-hours, to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours. The rover uses about 180 watt-hours per day for basic survival and communications, so this increase roughly doubles the amount of discretionary power for activities such as driving and using instruments.'"

4 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing by MyLongNickName · · Score: 0, Troll

    I find it amazing what can be done with so little power. 240 watts? I'm looking around my office and figuring the lights use about twice that. This thing is cruising around mars, keeping itself warm, sending information to Earth. No real point to this post except to express my amazement.

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  2. I love american units by iris-n · · Score: 0, Troll

    Let's see, we have "180 watt-hours per day". A bit long ins't it? As long as there's 24 hours per day (not so sure of that in mars ;), we can convert it to 7.5 watt-hour per hour. Or 7.5 watts. Humm. So we have a new unit of power!

    Lets call it Wh/d, and set the conversion 1 Wh/d = 24 W.

    Or we could, you know, use joules.

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  3. Re:Math? by oodaloop · · Score: 0, Troll

    The summary? I don't even read the titles before I start posting.

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  4. Re:Next time . . . by Requiem18th · · Score: 0, Troll

    No kidding? I guess *fucking NASA* thanks the benefit your doubt.

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