Here’s The Heartbreaking Last Photo Sent By Opportunity From Mars

Opportunity managed to take a look at its surroundings one more time before it died in the shadow of a Martian dust storm. It managed to save the photo for us to see it.

Science Alert says that this image basically represents a conclusion to the rover’s mission: a detailed panorama which combines the most recent tracks of the journey with a glimpse of sands that it will never get to touch.

Opportunity was not supposed to run as long as it did

The rover was not intended to run as long as it did. The 90 days have eventually stretched to 15 years of rolling over the Martian sands snapping pics just like a tourist who forgot to come home.

This final photo was taken from Opportunity’s final resting place back in May 2018.

Over 29 days, the rover soaked up its surroundings in 354 individual snapshots before beaming them back to NASA. After that, they were put together.

Most photos offer a colorful view of the landscape, but the few black and white blocks in the corner have been taken with fading energy, describes Science Alert.

“This final panorama embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery,” says John Callas from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

He continued and explained that “To the right of center you can see the rim of Endeavor Crater rising in the distance. Just to the left of that, rover tracks begin their descent from over the horizon and weave their way down to geologic features that our scientists wanted to examine up close.”

Callas concluded: “And to the far right and left are the bottom of Perseverance Valley and the floor of Endeavour crater, pristine and unexplored, waiting for visits from future explorers.”

This picture shows us another world, and it will remain in history.