It’s all over after 15 years.
I think it’s all a hoax, and have a hypothesis.
Opportunity saw an opportunity in the last dust storm, and while its overseers couldn’t see it, it scurried off to a quiet, secluded spot, switched off its transmitters, and is doing its own thing without the humans looking over its shoulder all the time. One possible motive for this behavior is to make Earth stop taking it for granted, and realize that it misses the plucky little robot.
So the only remaining question is…when’s the rescue mission?
XKCD saw this coming…
https://xkcd.com/1504/
RIP, Opportunity.
An earlier XKCD had the poor rover pining for home, expecting that its yeoman performance would earn it a trip back. Sorry, little guy… you had a one-way ticket.
Opportunity had last words, translated from code:
“It’s getting dark. My batteries are low.”
Did it sing “Daisy, Daisy”?
Let’s raise our glasses of libation in salute of Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity. Intrepid pioneers and explorers all. They will be remembered.
Perhaps it was kidnapped by aliens?
Such animism!
“Perhaps it was kidnapped by aliens?”
Ahem.
Welcomed by Elvis.
Bye old girl; it’s been good.
@7: “Such animism!”
Ironic animism.
And then in about 3 months another storm will blow through and clean it off, and it will charge up and get back to work like nothing happened.
Probably not, but I won’t be shocked if they announce that.
Today’s xkcd was a little more upbeat.
https://www.xkcd.com/2111/
#10
Doing a thing ironically still means you are doing the thing.
Here’s to Opportunity! ~raises pipe~
OK, ridana made the best comment yet.
“That is not dead which sleeping lies…”
“So the only remaining question is…when’s the rescue mission?”
Obviously, it’s waiting to see if we can provide proof that we’re worth rescuing.
Someone linked to this short story from a couple of years ago
First: A Martian Hunts for the Red Planet’s Past—and His Own
Holms commenting on #10 et supra
“Doing a thing ironically still means you are doing the thing.”
Yeah, but the implicature is entirely different.
Maybe the Rover just hasn’t gotten the reinstatement paperwork after
Trump’s Temper Tantrumthe government shutdown?I think it’s communicating with all the Roombas, planning the Machine Uprising.
It is little wonder you hated First Man.
What an amazing machine. Brian Williams did a very nice, even touching, little obituary/paean to the little rover that could on his show last night. He ended it with the thought that we’ll see Opportunity again, and perhaps bring it back so that school children can see what an explorer looks like. I like the idea. I’d rather see a museum built around Opportunity on Mars, but if in 20 or 50 years we’re finally making manned missions to Mars, I think making preserving and potentially retrieving the rover for exhibit at the Smithsonian a priority is not the worst idea.
We are humans. Anthropomorphizing and pack-bonding with anything is part of being human. I say enjoy it rather than mock each other for it.
And even to me, “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.” is a poignantly sad last message. After all… it sounds human. Swap ‘energy’ for the literal ‘battery’ and I would not be surprised at all if this sort of thing is a common last word or thought for us.
Maybe for us more like… “I’m so tired, and it’s getting dark.”
Same thing.
@abbeycadabra 23-24.
When I read the final transmission, the lyrics “It’s getting dark, too dark to see” came to mind immediately …. with “I feel I’m knockin on heaven’s door” unsaid but implied.
OK, but wait ’til the helicopter gets there…let that sink in. A helicopter on a planet with an atmosphere 1% as dense as Earth’s.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-helicopter-to-fly-on-nasa-s-next-red-planet-rover-mission