• Question: What happens to the old rovers?

    Asked by anon-269449 to Hayley on 27 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Hayley and the Mars Rover

      Hayley and the Mars Rover answered on 27 Nov 2020:

      The old rovers (Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity) are still on Mars, they just aren’t moving around or collecting information anymore. We have no way of getting them back to Earth.

      These rovers all had solar panels and Mars is quite dusty and windy so eventually the solar panels got covered in a layer of dust and couldn’t power the rover anymore.

      The Curiosity rover was only expected to work for around 2 years, but 8 years later it is still going!

Comments