Spirit gets ‘Dusted’ on Mars.

This is a cool story in any measure of science or sci-fi. Over the past several months of cruising around the dusty Martian surface, the solar panels on the rover Spirit have become increasing obscured by red dust. In a chance encounter, a dust-devil has given our rover a new lease on life.

“Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site.

Turns out that a martian whirlwind  dubbed a dust devil  likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit’s solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life.

Engineers report that the rover’s power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.”

Just goes to show that science can be just as much fun as science fiction. The Mars rovers have already lived far beyond the time they were expected to survive the harsh environment, but this new event has got everyone wondering just how long the rovers will continue to operate. With the solar panels clear, and the rover again at full power, it may yet be possible that we see the evidence of live uncovered. I’ll be watching with great interest.