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It's been exactly one year since Opportunity sent this final message home
It's been exactly one year since Opportunity sent this final message home—on its 5,111th Martian day
Opportunity's final message home is not much to look at on its own. If you're old enough to remember film cameras, it looks like the final exposure on a roll of film, developed but partly missing. It's a suitable epitaph for Opportunity's mission.
Opportunity captured this image with the left half of its PanCam, or Panoramic Camera. The rover had the solar filter on the camera at the time, which is why the image is so dark. The bottom is cut off because it was unable to transmit the entire image before losing power.
It bears similarity to Opportunity's first image from Mars, also taken with the left Panoramic Camera.
The image was captured on the 5,111th Martian Sol, in the Perseverance Valley. It was captured at about 9:30 a.m. PDT (12:30 p.m. EDT) on June 10, 2018, one year ago today. It transmitted the image up to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at about 9:45, then on to Earth. It arrived here at about 10:05 a.m. PDT (1:05 p.m. EDT), where it was received by one of the stations in NASA's Deep Space Network.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)
It's been a year here, maybe.
Having spent so much longer there than here, it's more appropriate to celebrate Opportunity's milestones in Mars years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:49PM
It's not mutually exclusive. This way we get twice as much cake. [indra-burkart.de]