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It has been several months since NASA's rover Opportunity has become silent. A huge dust storm on Mars enveloped the planet in the dark and prevented Opportunity from generating solar energy. He entered a state of hibernation while waiting for the sky to clear, and although the dust storm was long past, the robot still needs to wake up.
Coincidentally, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft was right in the right place at the right time and took a quick glimpse of the area of the Martian surface where Opportunity had been last communicated. The photo, which does not provide much explanation as to why the rover failed to get out of its funk, still contains clues about the potential future of the rover.
Let's start with the good news: it's always there! Well, the dust storm would obviously not have been intense enough to drive the big vehicle into a new area or tear it apart, but the fact that the robot is still clearly visible to more than 160 miles means that, at least, it has not been buried under a drift or mound of dusty soil.
That being said, the bad news is that it's hard to tell from the photo how debris can still mask Opportunity's solar panels. Is there just a slight dirt that could get into the sunlight or are they covered with dust to the point that the rover is now actually dead? We simply do not know. The photo clearly shows that the sunlight hits the robot, but the fact that this light actually reaches the solar panels remains a mystery.
Similarly, even if the panels absorb the energy of the sun, it is unclear if this energy is charging anything. Keep in mind that Opportunity only lasted a few months on Mars. He has spent more than a decade doing various experiments and scientific observations, and his batteries are certainly not what they were. If prolonged downtime and freezing temperatures due to the dust storm have damaged the batteries, they may not be able to charge at all, which would render the robot dead.
NASA is currently conducting a sort of last-ditch attempt to maintain the Opportunity mission and has given the robot a deadline to wake up. There's about a month left in the robot before NASA essentially throws in the towel and continues, but the Opportunity team will continue to send messages until its time is up.
Image Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Arizona
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