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A photo of Perseverance Valley taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Opportunity, a 15-year-old rover, can be seen as a black spot in the HiRISE photo. Opportunity has been silent since the red planet was engulfed in a red haze caused by a dust storm. ( JPL | The NASA )
HiRISE captured a photo of Opportunity, the rover who remained silent a hundred days after a dust storm swept through Mars.
NASA has released the photo taken from space via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looks at the red planet since 2006.
Where is the occasion
In the photo, Opportunity can be seen as a point above Perseverance Valley. It was put to sleep in June, when a massive dust storm covered most of the planet, preventing sunlight reaching the ground and the solar panels of the rover.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe uses HiRISE to take the picture. The spacecraft is about 166 miles above the surface of the red planet.
#OppyPhoneHome Update@HiRISE Pictorial opportunity on the slopes of the Perseverance Valley. The robot was descending into the Martian valley when a dust storm hit a little over 100 days ago. We are still actively working to find contact.https: //t.co/uiLLoUm0Qp pic.twitter.com/p5Kt3O82KF – Spirit and Oppy (@MarsRovers) September 25, 2018
Opportunity of NASA phones
The dust storm has passed, but Opportunity has not responded to any command sent by the ground control. The tau, or the amount of sunlight reaching the surface around the vehicle, was estimated at around 1.3 on Thursday, September 20th, based on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Imager color camera data. In comparison, the tau during the dust storm reached 10.
NASA said Opportunity needed the tau around Perseverance Valley to drop below 1.5 in order to recharge its batteries and resume its mission.
On September 11th, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, began increasing the frequency of orders transmitted to the mobile via the Deep Space network. Starting three times a week, the team tries to communicate with the explorer the size of a golf cart several times a day. The JPL Radio Science Group will also continue to passively listen for any signs that Opportunity is starting to move after sleeping for almost four months.
NASA expects the vehicle to have suffered a low power outage after enduring the global dust storm.
Opportunity was launched on Mars in 2003. It was supposed to run for 90 days, but the brave explorer defied all odds. He persisted through the Martian sand dunes and blocked steering engines. In July, he celebrated his 15th birthday on the surface of the red planet.
Since his arrival, Opportunity has made revolutionary discoveries that have completely changed the way scientists view the Earth's neighbor.
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