The last message from a robot rover at NASA was "My battery is low and it's dark?



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On February 13, 2019, NASA announced that the mission of a robotic robot named Opportunity had ended after 15 years spent exploring the surface of Mars:

One of the most successful and sustainable feats in interplanetary exploration, NASA's Opportunity Optimizer mission ends after 15 years of exploring the surface of Mars and laying the groundwork for the return of Mars. NASA on the red planet.

The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with the Earth when a violent dust storm on the entire planet Mars covered its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand orders to restore the contact, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) space operations control center engineers tried to relaunch Opportunity, to no avail. The final solar energy rover communication was received on June 10th.

While the online world was mourning the loss of the famous Martian explorer, many social media users began to share a quote that would have constituted Oppy's final transmission to NASA: "My battery is low and it starts to to be dark. " This quote quickly made its way on the Internet. , shared by celebrities, journalists and social media influencers. Some people have also created tributes to Opportunity, illustrating the so-called final transmission of the rover:

Although many individuals and media outlets cited these words as if they were a textual reproduction of Opportunity's final transmission, the sentence was not a literal reproduction of the robot's latest statement.

The quote comes from a Twitter wire about the disappearance of Oppy by KPCC science journalist Jacob Margolis. At one point, Margolis said that the final transmission of the rover "fundamentally"Translated as" my battery is low and it is getting dark ":

However, this quote quickly escaped the context of Margolis' Twitter feed and began to circulate as if it were transmitting a verbatim message of the Martian rover. On February 16, 2019, Margolis published an article on The laist website explaining how his words were taken out of context:

My tweet is an interpretation of what two scientists from the Mars Exploration Mission have said.

Project Assistant Scientist Abigail Fraeman spoke about what it was when they realized the [2018] a dust storm was going to be particularly serious, and that Oppy's life was in danger. They told him to conserve energy.

"It's difficult because you know [the storm’s] come … but you can not do anything to stop it, "said Fraeman.

"On Thursday, we knew it was bad. And then Friday, we knew it was really bad, but we could not do anything other than watch. And then it was Sunday, we received a communication from the rover and we were shocked, "she said. "He basically said we had no electricity, and that was the last time we heard about it."

John Callas, the project leader, presented another moving detail about the final communication with Oppy: "It also revealed to us that the sky was incredibly dark, to the point where sunlight does not pass. It's nighttime during the day. "

"We were hoping the rover could get out of it. Let the rover hang on, and then, when the storm clears, the rover will recharge, "he said. "It did not happen. At least that did not tell us it happened. So, we do not know. "

When NASA announced the completion of the Opportunity mission in February 2019, the Martian rover had not communicated with the space agency since last June. The opportunity powered by solar energy was low when one of the largest dust storms observed on Mars invaded the planet and turned the "day into night", as was writing the Planetary Society:

On June 20, NASA announced that the storm was widespread. To be more specific, it has turned into a dust event that surrounds the planet (PEDE), leaving enough dust in the atmosphere to completely cover the planet and block the sun. In other words, the red planet and most of its features were hidden from most instruments orbiting a cloud of beige and opaque dust. Atmospheric scientists conducting measurements with orbital instruments were soon blocked.

Oppy sent his last message from the surface of Mars on June 10, 2018:

This message would prove to be his last message from March 10th, 2018. The streamlined content of this missive informed his crew that a monster dust storm was raising dust all around the Crater Endeavor and that he was spending the night there. A few minutes later, the solar powered robot field geologist probably stopped and went into hibernation mode to wait for the storm.

NASA tried to contact Opportunity several times after the storm hit, but the mobile never replied:

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