Opportunity

Now you can have the latest photos of Mars sent directly to your phone

NASA’s Opportunity rover has been sending images of Mars back to Earth since 2004. Now, computer scientist Mark Powell, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has developed a free app for iPhone and Android that wires these photos directly to your phone. The app is called called, quite simply, “Mars Images.” Mars Images automatically updates with…

NASA claims to have found “bullet proof evidence” of Mars’ watery past

A few weeks ago, NASA scientists announced they’d discovered something completely new on the surface of the Red Planet. Now they know what it is —and they’re calling it the most powerful evidence for liquid water on Mars ever encountered by the Opportunity Rover. The unassuming mineral vein, nicknamed “Homestake” by its discoverers, measures just…

10 Unsolved Martian Mysteries

For decades, humanity has been launching missions to Mars, in hopes of making sense of the enigma that is our solar system’s most Earth-like planet. And as with all good mysteries, many of our investigations have simply led to more questions. Among the most pressing of these questions is whether Mars is, or ever has…

NASA: We’ve discovered something completely new on the surface of Mars

NASA may be ramping up for the launch of its next Mars rover mission later this month, but the Agency’s Opportunity rover — which has been chugging around the Martian landscape for close to eight years, now — refuses to recede into obsolescence. You’re looking at a close-up of the Martian surface, recently shot by…

Watch Mars Rover Opportunity’s three-year trip from Victoria Crater to Endeavour Crater…in under three minutes

NASA’s robotic Mars Rover Opportunity has been trekking around the surface of Mars for close to eight years now, over 30 times longer than its planned mission duration. While on Mars, the hardy Opportunity moves at a pretty leisurely pace. It took this Energizer-bunny of a rover just short of three years to span the…

Here’s some of the litter we’re leaving on Mars

Yes, it’s proof of intelligence life on Mars – the only problem is that it’s just some of our old crap. Specifically, it’s the heat shield jettisoned by the Opportunity rover when it landed on Mars a few years back. This photo was snapped back in 2005 as the rover paid a visit to its…

10 Super Cool Jobs You Can Get At Apple Right Now

You don’t have to simply be a fan of Apple products, you can actually help build them. The company has hundreds of job openings in everything from operations to HR to hardware and software engineering. It probably helps to have a friend at the company, but you can just cold apply for positions through Apple’s…

As Spirit Fades Forever, Mars Opportunity Rover Reaches New Distance Milestone

Even as its twin goes dark, Opportunity soldiers on unabated: The plucky NASA Mars rover, on planet for seven years now, just passed an impressive 30-kilometer milestone. Next on its plate is the massive 14-mile-wide Endeavour crater, just two miles away. The picture, while impressive, is not perfect. Cosmic rays have bombarded the rover more…

Someone to watch over me

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looks down at the Mars Opportunity Rover as it ventures perilously near a crater. Via Cosmic Log. Image Nasa/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

NASA Mars Spirit Rover Has Recurring Case of Amnesia

We hadn’t visited the NASA Mars rovers in a while here at Gizmodo, so I thought I’d take a look today and see what they’re up to. Unfortunately, things could be better. You see, while Opportunity continues to function nominally after nearly six years on planet, its companion Spirit, on the opposite side of the…

Fellow Robots Trying to Help Stuck Mars Spirit

You know when Woody gets kidnapped and then Buzz Lightyear and Mr Potato and all the toys go to rescue him from the evil toy man? Well, this story has nothing to do with that. Right now, NASA’s Spirit rover status is: Spirit: Embedded and Cleaner >> In other words: Spirit —which was suffering some…

Mars Science Lab Rover Mission Delayed Two Years

Sad news for the Mars Science Lab (MSL) mega-rover, big sister to the little rovers who’ve been roaming Mars for the past few years. The robot was supposed to launch next year, and start exploring Mars with a lot more scientific equipment (including a laser) than the current rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. It would have…

The Triumphant Journeys of Martian Robots

Since 1960 we’ve been attempting to explore the red planet, and along the way there have been countless failures and lost spacecraft that attest to just how hard it is to fly those 35 million miles from here to there. However, there have also been success stories, like the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit, who…

Looking for Life on Mars with the Next Generation Rover

Definitely one of the coolest symposia at AAAS was the one this afternoon devoted to the Martian rovers — past, present, and future. On the panel were NASA’s Richard Cook, who helped design Spirit and Opportunity as well as the next Martian rover; Steven Squyres, a Cornell geologist who has been working with Spirit and…

Mars rover Opportunity is soldiering bravely onward, despite a crippling injury. Reports of a broken rock grinder and troubles with the infrared spectrometer make it sound like the machine is blinded and helpless while scientists try and work out a fix.

Mars Rovers: Three Years Running and Smarter, Too

Those two Mars rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, landed on the red planet in January 2004 and are still going strong, twelve times longer than their originally-planned mission of 90 Martian days. Together they’ve sent more than 160,000 images back to Earth and have driven a combined 10.4 miles. The two rovers were pretty much…