Channel: Wacky Universe

Category: Entertainment

Tags: mars rovermars missionmer-boppy rovermarsopportunityspirit rovernasa rovernasaopportunity rovermerroveroppy

Description: Things NASA's Mars rover Opportunity discovered on the red planet! Searching for signs of life and water was it successful? Subscribe for more wacky universe videos: bit.ly/2LUOOD2 The Mars Exploration Rover mission involved sending two rovers to Mars in 2003. One was Opportunity, aka MER-B and nicknamed Oppy, while the other was named Spirit. They launched close together, Spirit on June 10, 2003, and Opportunity on July 7, 2003. They landed in January 2004, on opposite sides of the planet's equator, deployed instruments, and started to look for answers concerning Martian "areology", which is like "geology", but on Mars instead of Earth. The entire trip took 200 days for Opportunity. Its mission was to determine the likelihood of Mars ever having been an environment that could have supported life. The best way to do that would be to determine if water had ever existed on the surface at some point. In the rocky outcropping immediately surrounding the landing site the rock layers rose and fell irregularly indicating that some sort of "flow" had disrupted them. Water? Maybe, but it could also have been lava, or wind. Opportunity used its rock grinding tool to wear away the surface. It took microscopic images and discovered voids in the rock that were spaces where a mineral had been eroded away. It seemed the missing mineral was soluble and chemical analysis revealed that there were hydroxide ions in the remaining rock. That was a very strong indication that water had been present when the rock formed. First Evidence! It did more soil analysis, spotting thousands of small round rocks just a centimeter or two in diameter, whose color made viewers think of blueberries. The name stuck. Full of iron oxide, it argued heavily for the presence of water. Oppy then headed off to Endurance crater at the breakneck top-speed of up to 5 cm per second. After 84 Martian days, called sols, each of which is approximately 40 minutes longer than an Earth-day, Opportunity finally made it to its next target, Endurance Crater. At this point it should be noted that the entire mission was expected to last 90 sols. When that date occurred, since both rover twins were still performing well, the mission was extended. This would happen several more times as the rover followed the red-line seen in this photo from top to bottom covering 28 miles total. Ultimately Opportunity would end up operating for more than 8 Martian years, or 15 Earth years. #mars #rover #nasa