The Essentials

Seven years schlepping across Mars was all it took. Popular Mechanics magazine has given the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity a lifetime achievement award “for overcoming great challenges in their dogged pursuit of new discoveries on the Red Planet.” The Breakthrough Mechanical Lifetime Achievement Award cites Mars Exploration Rover mission leader Steven Squyres, principal investigator [...]

When the New York Times’ Lens blog invited readers to send in photos capturing a moment in time – 1500 UTC Sunday, May 2 – they wrote: “Wherever you are, we hope you’ll have a camera — or a camera phone — in hand. And we hope you’ll be taking a picture to send to [...]

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have had plenty of work to occupy them since they landed on the red planet more than six years ago – but they still manage to keep their fans up to date on their adventures through Twitter (which didn’t even exist when they landed). And their fans appreciate it. [...]