#the mars rover

[lunaviathan]

Crying over the mars rovers

oh to be a little robot sent to another planet to learn and learn and sing yourself happy birthday until you can’t anymore

[satansluckycigarette]

In a world of problematic AI and problematic heroes, I present to you the King of Unproblematic AI Heroes- The Mars Rover

Source Image: National Geographic’s “Mars” issue, released February 2021

[ink-the-artist]

Love the contrast between the Americans’ “Apollo” and the Soviets’ “Sputnik.” You got the Americans naming their rocket after a Greek god trying to communicate the grandness and importance of this rocket. And you got the Soviets naming their rocket “fellow traveler.” Like a friend you go on an  adventure with together. This rocket is our little friend lol 

[magpithy]

Losing my shit over Perseverance's pet rock.

I want what they have

[not-an-alien-scientist]

Human: Dude I'm not so sure about this whole pack bonding thing you've been talking about humans don't even like each other

Alien: Well is it not true that your species collectively grieved over a non-sentient robot on the planet I believe you designate as "'Mars"?

Human: Okay look, that's different, Opportunity's last words just broke our hearts okay

Alien: But... it did not send a last message of words. It was merely the last data recorded by the non-sentient robot. The data showed scientists low power and also indicated the skies on the planet were dark to the point where no sunlight was visible at the time of the last data transfer, nothing more. x

Human: Exactly

Alien: So why does your species grieve over basic data?

Human: Well you just said it "My battery is low and its getting dark"

Alien: That is a poetic translation of basic data

Human: Are you trying to dishonor Opportunity's work?

Alien: N-no I jus- - -

Human: Opportunity was a good boy who did his best. End of story *huffs out and goes to grab some soda*

Alien: *watches human walk away without any farewell words* ?!?!? *jots down in notes* [ Humans can be very protective of their own even when challenged with basic facts, proceed with caution when discussing pack mates of any type, including all non-sentient pack mates. ]

[aspaceinthecosmos]

Haven't seen anything about Ingenuity on tumblr yet, so I guess I'll make a post about it

Ingenuity (sometimes called Ginny) was an companion craft to Perseverance, one of the rovers currently on Mars. As opposed to any of the past rovers, however, Ingenuity was a rotorcraft intended to fly above Mars' surface.

After landing on Mars in February of 2021 and completing its first flight on April 19th, 2021, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly on another planet. Its original goal was only 5 flights, but it well surpassed that number, logging 72 flights with over two hours of in-air time.

On January 18th, 2024, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance midway through a flight, and a few days later, NASA had confirmation that the rotors were damaged, leaving Ingenuity incapable of flight.

So long, Ingenuity. You did so much <3

Source:

[deep-space-netwerk]

Ask and you shall receive.

So do y'all know about Curiosity's wheels? They have these cool hole patterns!

The holes are ostensibly for tracking wheel slippage. The pattern is stamped in the Martian sand, and by taking a picture of the tracks and measuring the distance between the repeating hole marks, you can tell how much the wheels are slipping.

But the pattern isn't arbitrary! Curiosity (along with many many other NASA missions) was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory - or "JPL". While JPL is entirely federally funded and almost exclusively works on NASA missions, it's technically operated by Caltech, not NASA. When JPL was assembling Curiosity, they added some "JPL" decals to it along with the cool "Curiosity" label on the arm.

Well, NASA HQ found out and got mad. "You can't put those JPL stickers all over our rover!" they said, and made JPL scrape them all off.

JPL reluctantly complied, but definitely got the last laugh. No decals allowed? Well fine - the holes in Curiosity's wheels say "JPL" in Morse code. So every few feet, the name of the real creator of the rover is stamped into the surface of Mars!

[imaginariumgeographica]

At the time of posting (5:17 UTC) Curiosity has been on Mars for 11 Earth years!

There's a post claiming that Curiosity sings itself happy birthday each year - it did it's first year, but it hasn't since. Power is an in-demand resource, especially this year when we're in the dead of winter with an aging battery and still trying to pack in science as we climb Mount Sharp!

This past earth year has been a great one for the decade-old rover. We crossed into the sulfate region, which contains more "salty" minerals which probably formed later in Mars' history when the planet was transitioning from its wet past to its dry present.

Despite this we still saw evidence of past water, which we thought we'd left behind lower down the mountain!

We're not just looking down with our robot geologist - the present climate is a treasure trove. It's the middle of the cloudy season on Mars, and earlier this year Curiosity saw some stunning twilight clouds lit by the just-set sun. This included seeing crepuscular rays for the first time on Mars, and a stunning, feather-like cloud.

Curiosity has faced challenging terrain from the hard rocks of the marker band to the slippy slidy ridge it navigated quite recently, but 11 years after landing it's still going strong with a team back on earth helping it navigate the challenges it faces.

Happy Earth birthday, Curiosity 🥳

[klaasfoto]

Latest photo from the Mars rover.

[continuumalloy]

Moodboards for Laika and Mars from @laikascomet (by @fourleafisland), with themes of flowers, stars and summer

This is my first time drawing little fake glitter stickers to put over a board, but I'm really happy with the result, because it gives it much more of the scrapbook-sort-of feeling I'm going for :]

[emolionsrawr]

chimney: out of everyone in the firehouse, who do you think cries the most?

hen: buck

eddie: buck

ravi: buck

bobby: buck

buck: i do not!

tommy: baby boy you cried at the raccoon video yesterday

buck: *tears up* he just wanted to eat the cotton candy but it dissolved when he cleaned it

hen: and you cried when the mars rover ran out of battery

buck: *sobbing* HE WAS A GOOD BOY! HE GOT GOOD SAMPLES AND AMAZING PICTURES AND THEY ABANDONED HIM!

tommy: *pulls buck to his chest and strokes his hair* it's okay sweetheart, it'll all be okay

hen: i shouldn't have mentioned the mar-

buck: HE HAD A NAME! HIS NAME WAS OPPOTUNITY AND YOU'LL SHOW HIM RESPECT!

tommy: hey, baby? would you like a nap?

buck: *sniffles*... yeah

eddie: you just had to bring up oppotunity huh hen?

chimney: yeah hen that was cold

hen: what?!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[nothingbutlimbo]

ALL SOLAR SYSTEM CHARACTERS ARE DONE ✨✨✨✨✨✨

[martian-clouds]

This Zenith Movie was taken on Sol 1222 (2016-01-13) at approximately 9:52 LTST and a solar longitude of 94.64°. (What is this?)

[theofficialastronomy101]

Earth as seen from planet Mars (Curiosity rover photography) credit to NASA.

[irondadmadlads]

Irondad Prompt #193:

Peter: :(

Tony: What’s wrong?

Peter: Opportunity died

Tony: The… the Mars rover?

Peter: Mhm

Tony:

Tony: *goes to Mars to rescue Oppy for Peter*