[ad_1]
The highest mountain of the solar system does not have time for dust storms
At 16 miles high and with a 50-mile-wide caldera, Olympus Mons on Mars gets up and goes out A mbadive dust storm that has images taken by the Mars Express satellite of the European Space Agency on July 2 show the mbadive volcano that contrasts with the dusty haze that began on May 30 and s & # 39; is spread over a large part of the planet.
The mbadive storm caused NASA to lose NASA Opportunity. The rover the size of a golf cart arrived alongside rover Spirit in 2004. While Spirit stopped the rover in 2009, Opportunity kept trucking, but is powered by solar energy, so the dust storm forced the rover to shut down. 19659005] The scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory hope to reconnect with the robot when the dust storm disappears. When this happens, however, is uncertain. The planet has not seen a dust storm of this size since 2007.
Meanwhile, the Mars Curiosity rover of NASA is not affected because it is nuclear power, although the decreased light makes photography more difficult. protect your camera after each use by pointing it to the ground. For the moment, Curiosity is the only rover, with Opportunity on hold, Spirit having last communicated with NASA in 2010 and the original Sojourner mobile, which was part of the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997.
A fifth rover, part of the March 2020 mission is expected to be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Base in July or August 2020 to take advantage of the relative proximity of Mars and Earth for its arrival in February 2021. Plus, the European Space Agency is planning the ExoMars mission in 2021 with its own rover.
The Opportunity mission was initially expected to last only 90 days, but it was able to continue the long-term exploration of Martian terrain.
[email protected], 407-420-5134
Source link
