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NASA's Opportunity rover has been rolling around the surface of the blood-red planet for an amazing 14 years. The rover'south expected operational life was a mere 90 sols (most three Earth months), merely information technology only kept on going.  It's looking increasingly probable that the planet'south global dust tempest has ended the improbable run of Opportunity. Every bit the tempest begins to clear, in that location's still no signal from the rover.

Opportunity uses solar panels to proceed its batteries charged, and that's a trouble when the atmosphere is thick with dust. The newer Marvel rover was besides swallowed up by the grit storm, only information technology has a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) to generate power from a chunk of radioactive material. NASA knew things were going to get rough for Opportunity every bit soon as the grit storm began morphing into a global event.

In May, NASA shifted Opportunity into a depression-power mode in hopes of conserving enough power to proceed information technology active through the tempest. The program was for Opportunity to cheque in with NASA every week or so, but the rover dropped off the map entirely in June. NASA reported at the time that Opportunity nigh likely entered failsafe manner, which disables everything except for the mission clock. There isn't even power for the rover's heaters, which forbid damage to the battery from the chilly Martian environment. In its final check-in, the rover reported dangerously low internal temperatures.

In a best-case scenario, Opportunity could brainstorm collecting light when the tempest clears and turn itself dorsum on. However, there could be dust covering the solar panels, or the cold might have irreparably harmed the battery. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. The tempest is immigration, just there'due south even so no word from the rover.

Curiosity photo of the same drill pigsty before the storm and after the storm hitting, showing how much light is blocked by grit storms on Mars.

Michael Staab of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Infinite.com that the team is getting worried Opportunity might non come back. "This is the first time she [Opportunity] has stopped talking to us and not resumed communication when we expected," he said.

All hope is not lost, though. Opportunity could simply have just part of its solar panels exposed to sunlight, which means a much longer recharge bike. It could hit adequate levels whatsoever day now and brand contact with mission control. In the meantime, the NASA team has reportedly started playing inspirational music to keep spirits high. Favorites include "Here Comes The Lord's day" and "Wake Me Upwards Before You lot Get-Become."

At present read: Martian Dust Storm Is At present a 'Planet-Encircling' Effect, NASA May Have Accidentally Destroyed Evidence of Organics on Mars twoscore Years Ago, and New Image Shows Get-go Stages of Martian Grit Tempest