The guy gets a rover tattoo to mark the final goodbye. There is only one small problem



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It is not uncommon for human beings to want to commemorate an important moment or milestone event with a tattoo. It is not uncommon that people do not carefully check what they do before putting it on their skin (look at you, Ariana Grande).

That's exactly what a man did when we finally said goodbye to Opportunity, the little rover on Mars that may well have last week.

After 15 years on the red planet to return vital data, NASA acknowledged that the rover had succumbed to the dust storm on Mars that had made it lose touch in the summer.

The last message he sent back to Earth was heartbreaking: "My battery is low and it's getting dark," is the message the stranger has tattooed on his right shoulder, accompanied by a picture of the brave old Opportunity.

Only this is not the case. It's curiosity.

And the Internet does not let him live it.

The photo of the tattoo was shared by Charles Finch on Twitter, who was quick to say that it was not his tattoo and to be kind to the person he was acting on.

Not that it stopped people.

It may not be something the casual observer would notice, but if you love exploring space enough to tattoo it on your back, you'll think about your rovers.

Although some people have tried to look on the bright side.

The opportunity, of course, is the rover with a 90-day mission that lasted 15 years and conquered the hearts of the people (read the delightful obituary of Tom Whipple for the Times here). Launched in 2003, Oppy landed on Mars in January 2004 to walk around a bit, collect data and then possibly die, buried under a dust storm that would block its solar panels due to Mars' lack of protective atmosphere. Instead, it continued until June 2018, when the future dust storm, the largest since its arrival, appeared.

With a heroic effort on June 10, he used what would prove to be the last of his batteries to send this fatal message – which science journalist Jacob Margolis, who tweeted it for the first time, said it was a "poetic translation" of Oppy's farewell.

Curiosity, on the other hand, is alive and well on Mars. Since arriving in 2012, his mission is to explore the crater Gale and study Martian climate and geology. Although Curiosity never met his older brother, 8,400 kilometers (5,200 miles), he sent his own message of farewell to the brave probe.

We do not cry, you cry.

OK, none of us are crying, we still do not care about the idiot who has tattooed the bad rover for life.

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