Mars Rover Powers Up
by Joseph on Nov.05, 2004, under Main
Apparently, Opportunity received an unexepected power boost recently:
Overnight, Opportunity’s solar panels produced between 2% and 5% additional power, perhaps due to Martian dust that had settled on them being removed.

I think I’ll skip this Opportunity for a joke.
Suuure, NASA, whatever you say. Dust magically fell off of the rover’s solar panels. Wind? Where do you think the rover is, Earth? And somehow the power increase happened overnight? You know, night? As in no sunlight for the solar panels to collect? Explain that one, o mighty scientists. You couldn’t hypothesize your way out of paper bag. I could come up with a better theory in my sleep. More plausible scenarios include:
- Opportunity had the power all along but it was stored in the metric system
- Opportunity stole the power from Spirit
- Friendly Martians gave the rover extra power
- Unfriendly Martians accidentally gave the rover power
- Dinosaurs gave the rover extra power
- NASA made up the whole mission
- There’s no such thing as Mars
Put that in a rocket and smoke it, NASA.
November 5th, 2004 on 3:01 pm
I’ll go with the last two scenarios. Now… where did I put my tinfoil hat?
November 5th, 2004 on 3:39 pm
I dunno, Jon. I kinda like the Dinosaurs. Rawr.