Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Stormy Weather

Following up on this posting, here's a quick update. Both Spirit and Opportunity are being threatened by large dust storms that are girdling the martian globe. It's not so much the force of the winds involved (remember that sequence from Mission to Mars?), but the amount of dust being raised. Both Spirit and Opportunity rely on solar power to keep them going and the amount of light getting through the dust is decreasing, as this sequence of pictures from the Astronomy Picture of the Day site shows. Will this be the end of these plucky devices?

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