Opportunity Twitters Self Portrait

By Nancy Atkinson - September 6, 2008 at 7:49 AM UTC | Planetary Science
oppy-self-portrait.jpg

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The Mars Exploration Rovers are now tweeting on

Twitter

, and Opportunity recently shared what she's been doing since climbing out of Victoria crater via a shadow self portrait. After seeing a one-time electrical spike on Opportunity's left front wheel, mission managers decided to have the rover climb out of the crater and get back on level ground. Opportunity is now examining some fist sized rocks, or cobbles, that might be ejecta from far away craters. Spirit, over on the other side of the Red Planet is weathering out the end of the southern hemisphere Martian winter. Another Twitter report from the rovers said that Spirit's solar array energy is now up slightly from 235 to 245 watt hours. Power levels will have to rise a little more before Spirit can resume exploring actively.

[caption id="attachment_17815" align="alignnone" width="580" caption="Spirit's southern tilt. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell"]

[/caption] Spirit has had to park on a north facing tilt in order to gather as much sunlight, and the image above shows the tilt. In the latest rover

flight director video report

, rover driver Scott Maxwell said the team is keeping an eye on the weather near Spirit's, location watching for any rise in atmospheric dust. Dust has gathered on the rover's solar panels, and any additional dust would hamper power levels as well. But so far everything is looking good, and Martian skies were actually clearer this past week.

Both rovers have been operating for more than 1,600 Martian sols, or days on Mars. A sol on Mars in about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com