Opportunity, also known as MER-B (for Mars Exploration Rover
B) left planet Earth July 7, 2003. Its mission was primarily to determine the composition
of rocks and unconsolidated rocky material, and to search for evidence there
was once water on Mars. Opportunity was expected to be operational 90 sols (almost
93 earth days), but like the title character in Pixar’s Wall-E, it kept
recharging its solar batteries, going dormant during dust storms, and doggedly
pursuing its mission. For fourteen years! MER-B did eventually find proof of
Martian water. The folks at NASA referred to MER-B as “she” and nicknamed her “Oppy.”
When Oppy failed to respond in 2018, NASA engineers spent the next eight months
sending her wake up calls. Their last message to her was a song: “I’ll Be
Seeing You” by Billie Holiday. That’s what humans do. We get hopelessly attached,
even to inanimate objects. And when words can’t express how we feel, we turn to
music.
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