The older, smaller cousin of NASA's huge Mars rover Curiosity is
quietly celebrating a big milestone Thursday — nine years on the
surface of the Red Planet. NASA's Opportunity rover landed on
Mars the night of Jan. 24, 2004 PST (just after midnight EST on
Jan. 25), three weeks after its twin, Spirit, touched down.
Spirit stopped operating in 2010, but Opportunity is still going
strong, helping scientists better understand the Red Planet's
wetter, warmer past. "No one could've imagined how good the
exploration and scientific discovery would be for this vehicle,
looking from the perspective of nine years ago," said John
Callas, Opportunity's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's been a phenomenal
accomplishment." Space news from NBCNews.com Teen's space
mission fueled by social media Science editor Alan Boyle's blog:
"Astronaut Abby" is at the controls of a social-media machine
that is launching the 15-year-old from Minnesota to Kazakhstan
this month for the liftoff of th