Spirit and Opportunity...on MARS! (BIG HONKING PICS)

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040128a/sol25-flhaz.jpg

And Opportunity's spot is now the Challenger Memorial Station, which is most fitting (especially given it's the 18th anniversary of that disaster).

OMG, DINOSAURS ON MARS!!!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040204a/hematite_new-B011R1_br2.jpg

talk about beyond the infinite, whoa.

Or it could be a bigger shell.

Spirit has roved more than 3 kilometers now, a ridiculously huge amount:

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040610a/2NN153ILF65CYL00P1826L000M1-A154R1_br.jpg

Opportunity, meanwhile, is about to explore the Endurance depression/crater in more detail:

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040608a/06-SS-05-target-B133R1_br2.jpg

As this Washington Post story summarizes, Opportunity is about to hit the Victoria Crater, and that's some big news right there.

Even cooler, in ways -- the aeriel shot:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20061006c/rover-color-close-up2-annot_br.jpg

i LOVE these little guys

NASA announced it was extending for the fifth time the mission of Mars space probes Spirit and Opportunity

never stop

Going and Going
NASA Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity uses its front hazard-indentification camera to capture this wide-angle view of its robotic arm extended to a rock in a bright-toned layer inside Victoria Crater in this image taken during the rover's 1,322nd Martian day (Oct. 13, 2007).

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/10/17/gallery/mars-rovers-540x540.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45342000/jpg/_45342003_298552main_solb1687nav-516.jpg

Five years and still trucking!

Oh noes! Microsoft Security Patches?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/science/6371972.html

Okay, maybe not MS then. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20090413a.html
Don't ever stop, li'l dudes!

Haha, I was thinking about them the other day. Best rate-of-return on the original investment since the Voyagers, I figure.

A helping hand:

In May, the Mars rover Spirit became embedded in a patch of fluffy Martian soil, the worst such incident in the more than five years that Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, have been exploring the planet's equatorial region.

Since then, engineers have been trying to figure out the best way to extricate the rover, a project that has come to be known at the La Cañada Flintridge laboratory as the "Free Spirit" program. T-shirts are being made to memorialize the effort to liberate the rover.

This week, scientists finished replicating the situation on Mars in a 30-foot-square work room, mixing together 5,400 pounds of diatomaceous earth and clay to produce a fine powdery mixture the color of creme brulee and as fluffy and light as flour. Now comes trying to free the Earth Rover to figure out what might work for Spirit.

"This isn't the same as we have on Mars," cautioned Paolo Bellutta, a rover team member, of the powder. "Diatomaceous earth is made of fossils, and we have no evidence of fossils on Mars."

But it is "the closest thing" to the soil on Mars, Rover project manager John Callas said.

The engineers then drove the Earth Rover, about 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide, into an 8-foot by 12-foot sandbox. By Wednesday, the rover was stuck -- its six wheels embedded in 5 inches of the Martian soil analog. After sloping the sand so that the test rover was pitched on its side to match Spirit's predicament, the engineering team pronounced itself satisfied that it had succeeded in marooning two rovers on two planets.

The trick now, Callas said, is to put together a series of maneuvers on Earth that can be applied on Mars.

Yay! Good luck, rocket science guys who get paid to play in the sand! I think we even had pictorial evidence of this terrestrian setup in the Astronomy Picture Of The Day thread a couple of weeks ago.