Opportunity returned in a last striking panorama on Mars before being definitely disconnected

The Opportunity rover went to a better place: Mars. About 15 years after reaching Mars, he finally stopped in the middle of a global dust storm. Before the brave little traveler died, he gave a last gift to the inhabitants of the Earth: a magnificent panorama of Perseverance Valley.

The opportunity was heading towards the Perseverance Valley towards the end of its March run. The rover was supposed to last only a few months on the red planet, but he entered Perseverance Valley more than 4,000 Martian days later. NASA wanted to explore the western edge of Endeavor Crater, but Opportunity did not complete this mission.

The massive dust storm invaded the rover in June 2019, blocking the light from its solar panels. NASA received only one ping of the robot after placing it in power saving mode. All future attempts to contact Opportunity were met with silence. Just before the dust storm, Opportunity began taking pictures of what would become his last resting place. The panorama above includes 354 individual images captured between May 13 and June 10.

The dead point in the panorama is the path taken by Opportunity to enter Perseverance Valley. On the right, you can see rover tracks and a small hill at the edge of the crater rim. On the left, the panorama captured tabular rock formations.

NASA offers a zoomable version of the full image (above and click on the full screen icon at the top right) if you want to get a better overview of the details. The images come from three different filters on the Pancam unit of the rover: 753 nanometers (near infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (purple). You may notice that some pictures at the bottom left are monochrome. This is because the rover did not have time to capture the green and purple views of this area before the dust storm erased the sun.

What you are looking at is the final resting place of Opportunity. It's gone but not forgotten. NASA's Curiosity rover builds on Opportunity's success and survived the dust storm with its source of radio-thermal energy. The next NASA rover, christened March 2020, will use a similar design with new instruments designed to look for signs of life on the red planet. We can only hope that it will be as successful as Opportunity.

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