Smithsonian Celebrates a Decade of Mars Roving
Smithsonian Celebrates a Decade of Mars Roving
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| Steve Squyres, principal investigator for NASA’s Mars rover mission, stands before one of the panoramic photos in the new exhibit. AUVSI photo. |
By Brett Davis
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has unveiled a new exhibit collecting a decade’s worth of imagery from the Mars Exploration Rover mission, which includes photographs from the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
The Spirit rover lasted for six years after landing in 2004, and the exhibit includes its last photograph from the surface. Its twin rover, Opportunity, which landed on the opposite side of the planet, is functioning still.
“We expected three months” from the rovers, mission Principal Investigator Steve Squyres said at a press preview on 7 Jan. “We’ve gotten 10 years so far.”
Squyres and other MER team members said the roughly 50 images on display, culled from hundreds of thousands, were selected for both their scientific and aesthetic content, and some are printed large enough to make a visitor feel as if they are standing on the surface of the red planet.
John Grant, the chair of the MER science working group and curator of the exhibit, said it is in some sense a “travelogue” of the two rovers, but the team “mixed in the science” as well.
Squyres said the rovers have helped mankind’s understanding of its closest planetary neighbor, but the program’s real legacy will come elsewhere.
The rovers were built by the kids who watched the Mercury and Apollo missions, he said, and “our greatest legacy could turn out to be the next generation who come, see these pictures … and say, that’s really cool, but I bet I could do better.”
The exhibit, on the museum’s second floor, is named “Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars.”
