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With the sky lighting up over the red planet, NASA's reconnaissance observer spotted an Opportunity rover on the slopes of the Perseverance Valley. The massive dust storm on Mars, which was first detected on May 30th, halted the operations of the Opportunity rover and forced it into hibernation. Although the storm has finally dropped, NASA still has not heard of the rover. He contacted Earth for the last time on June 10.
Opportunity rover is a unmanned robotic vehicle powered by solar energy on Mars, which needs sunlight to recharge its batteries. However, the recent dust storm surrounding the planet has blocked sunlight on almost the entire red planet and put the vehicle in sleep mode. The rover team felt that the opportunity would get enough sun to recharge its solar panels once the storm calmed down. But there is no say and researchers are unable to communicate with the rover, even if the sky is clear. However, they saw the silent rover on the rugged terrain of Mars' perseverance valley.
The image is taken on September 20th by the Mars Color Imager camera from the MRO. The Mars orbiter was about 166 miles above the planet's surface when the image was captured.
"A new image produced by HiRISE, a high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), shows a small object on the slopes of the Perseverance Valley of the Red Planet. This object is Opportunity, which descended into the Martian valley when a dust storm swept through the area a little over 100 days ago.
Opportunity rover, with its twin named Spirit, was launched in 2003 and landed on Mars in 2004. The mission was originally scheduled to last 90 days, but both rovers exceeded expectations and made a number of discoveries on the red planet. The mission of the spirit ended in 2009 when it got bogged down in the Martian Hollow Earth.
Currently, Opportunity and Curiosity are the only two robotic vehicles in service on Mars. NASA's Curiosity rover is studying Martian's Gale crater and is largely unaffected by the dust storm because it has a nuclear-powered battery.
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