 Something strange is happening on Mars. It seems something or someone is cleaning the windows on one of two rovers probing the surface of the red planet. The rovers are proving to be quite the machines. NASA expected they would last only 90 days when they hit the surface of Mars. But now, after a year, they're still going strong. The rovers are not only still scooting all over the place, but one of them is getting some special attention from something there on the red planet. So what's going on? The rover collects a lot of the red Martian dust on its solar panels, enough so it actually starts to lose energy. But then, suddenly, something comes along to clean them off. What was it? | Squeegee wielding homeless Martians is my guess. |
Internet sites have been buzzing with the mystery. Duke Johnson, Clark Planetarium: "There were lots of explanations floating around out there, lots of jokes that I saw from little Martians out doing a good cleaning job on these things, to people writing things on the solar panels, and things like that." Of course, as much as we would like to hold on to that Mars mystique, Clark Planetarium's Duke Johnson says JPL has a more practical theory. Duke Johnson: "From what I've been able to tell from talking to some of the scientists there, they've really not got a concrete explanation for what's happened. Their best guess though, sometimes the wind blows just right across the rover and then it's able to remove some of the dust." If it is the wind, it routinely cleans the panels, boosting Opportunity's power output close to its maximum 900 watt-hours per day. |