June 27, 2009

Spirit Rover Begins Making Night Sky Observations

Written by Nancy Atkinson

Spirit's night observations from sol 1943. The bright streak is the star Canopus. Credit: NASA/JPL

When your rover has abundant energy but can't go anywhere, what's a scientist to do? How about making observations of the evening and night skies on Mars? With the benefit of a boost in electrical power from a wind gust cleaning off her solar panels, the Spirit rover has more energy available than she's had for a couple of years. But unfortunately, Spirit is stuck in a patch of loose soil in the Home Plate region on Mars.

While the engineers at JPL work hard at figuring out how to "Free Spirit" (see the new website dedicated to their efforts) scientists are making observations of her surroundings to aid in the effort to get her out. But there's also enough power to do additional observations, and astronomy was a logical choice.

"Certainly, a month or more ago, no one was considering astronomy with the rovers," said Mark Lemmon, planetary scientist at Texas A&M University and member of the rover team.

"We thought that was done. With the dust cleanings, though, everyone thinks it is better to use the new found energy on night time science than to just burn it with heaters." Besides, Lemmon added, using all the energy in the daytime might lead to overheating.

The image above was taken on Spirit's sol 1943 (June 22 on Earth)showing the night sky above her location.

Full article and images here:

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/06/27/spirit-rover-begins-making-night-sky-observations/