Slightly more than two years ago, two explorer robots landed on opposite sides of the planet Mars. With a predicted life of three months, the two rovers set about exploring the red planet looking mostly at geological features to determine if there was once water there which might lead to evidence that life once existed on the now barren planet.
Unbelievably, after two years, the rovers, named "Opportunity" and "Spirit" are still functioning and sending back data to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory! The rovers are equipped with scientific detection and measuring devices and two different cameras. The two landing sites turned out to be quite different, which was what NASA was hoping.
Very early in the mission, Opportunity found overwhelming evidence at a site named "Eagle Crater" that salt water had flowed over the area. Meanwhile, after three months of exploration in a rocky volcanic plain that might have had some water, Spirit headed for a small range of hills named the "Columbia Hills" (how ironic is that) that did show more evidence of once being underwater.
The lifespan of these two rovers is amazing, to say the least. And their geological findings are going to keep scientists busy for many years to come. With the power of the Internet, there is a lot of good information available to keep you current with the status of the mission.
I recently watched an interesting one hour show on the Science Channel that showed many of the pictures taken by the two rovers and how it found evidence of Mars' watery past. This week, a new IMAX film is being released called "Roving Mars," that puts many of the images together in a seamless moving picture playing on a screen five stories high. I believe there is an IMAX theater in both Spokane and Seattle and you can bet I will be visiting one of them soon.
If you would like to learn more about the Mars Rover mission, here are some excellent links for you:
The main website for the mission:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/
An excellent 8 page overview of the mission:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/factsheets/pdfs/Mars03Rover041020.pdf
Cornell University Site for the mission w/ excellent mission updates:
http://athena.cornell.edu/
Space.com's special web pages on the Rover Project:
http://www.space.com/marsrover/
Information on the new IMAX movie:
http://news.com.com/Mars+rovers+star+in+new+IMAX+film/2100-11397_3-6032081.html?
There are several other sites available to you too numerous to list here. If you want more, just do a Google or Yahoo search on "Mars rover" and you will get plenty.
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