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The Opportunity Rover's Final Photo of Mars (cnn.com)
pgmrdlm shares a report from CNN: Last May, Opportunity took a look around Perseverance Valley on the inner slope of Endurance Crater's western rim. The valley is about the length of two football fields and it's full of descending shallow troughs. Ironically, Perseverance Valley became Opportunity's final resting place when a planet-encircling dust storm took over Mars in June, blocking the sun from reaching the rover's solar panels. Engineers lost contact on June 10 and persistently sent more than a thousand signals and commands to the rover over eight months until they realized the mission was over on February 13. But before those dark days, Opportunity acted like a tourist, snapping 354 photos between May 13 and June 10 that would create one last beautiful panorama of the place it will forever call home. "This final panorama (embedded in the report) embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery," said Opportunity project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "To the right of center you can see the rim of Endeavour Crater rising in the distance. Just to the left of that, rover tracks begin their descent from over the horizon and weave their way down to geologic features that our scientists wanted to examine up close. And to the far right and left are the bottom of Perseverance Valley and the floor of Endeavour crater, pristine and unexplored, waiting for visits from future explorers."
Makes me want to drive around there in a dune buggy.
The XKCD cartoon was for Spirit, but it captured this feeling for Rover as well.
https://xkcd.com/695/
It you want to see that last panorama photo in better resolution, try this link:
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn....
This image is a cropped version of the last 360-degree panorama taken by the Opportunity rover's panoramic camera from May 13 through June 10, 2018. The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see.
Don't link to fucking CNN you utter twat. Link to the original source.
No they aren't living there. They are taking short stays of typically 6 months. You know why? Because they would be dead if they tried living there for years. Space nutters ignore reality. And by the way, the ISS is paradise compared to Mars or another reachable planet.
NASA has always been a marketing agency that does some space and military related work.
And an earlier comment is correct - skip linking to junk news outlets like CNN and use the original source
Were you expecting Marvin or something? This could be Earth in a million years.
What Mars does have that the ISS doesnâ(TM)t have (but that we should have some sort of test station for by now) is gravity. The main health problems that astronauts experience in the ISS are bone density loss and degradation of their vision. Both of these are results of the microgravity environment. On Mars, there would be gravity. What we simply donâ(TM)t know is if it would completely eliminate the health problems (high probability it would eliminate the pressure problems that damage eyesight, pretty reasonable chance that it could eliminate the bone density loss, at least if active measures are taken such as wearing ankle and wrist weights), reduce them, or be just as bad as microgravity (highly unlikely).
The other big health risks) aside from blowing up in a rocket/crashing or dying in some other accident) are radiation and the potential to be poisoned by toxins such as perchlorates. Frankly, the radiation fears are overblown. Yes, time outside would need to limited, but the radiation levels are pretty well understood at this point. Generally, Mars colonists would just have to live with a higher cancer risk and the occasional colonist who somehow gets caught outside during a solar event (theyâ(TM)re predictable, so they should normally get warnings to go inside). True, there can be radiation events that are unpredictable. If thereâ(TM)s a nearby supernova or something like that though, weâ(TM)re probably all toast anyway.
As for toxins, a good cleaning regimen in airlocks along with good suit design and suitable storage protocol for suits should prevent dust from being carried inside. Plus, the air would surely be heavily filtered. Also, itâ(TM)s not really that hard to remove perchlorates from water and to wash them out of soil or otherwise reduce them to safe levels.
Sure, there are obstacles to living on Mars, but there is no known reason they cannot be overcome. By simply declaring it impossible, you sound like those people who insisted that man would never fly, or that traveling faster than 30 mph would be fatal, or that elements could not be transmuted into other elements, or that wild animals like wolves or horses couldnâ(TM)t be domesticated or that âoeFire! Bad!â.
Can you explain exactly what justifies your absolute certainty? What makes you so sure?
Well, someone's gelsacs are safe from K'Breel's wrath now at any rate.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...
Table-ized A.I.