# @nasa on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CleMw3PL-OP
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/1218812-nasa-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a70e7a7023.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-11-27T16:55:54.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA (@NASA) — https://gondola.cc/NASA

## Caption

Here's to you, Oppy. 🥂

Before you say #GoodNightOppy, catch up on the little Mars rover that could. Touching down on the Red Planet in 2004, Opportunity embraced its namesake, and turned a 90-day mission into a 15-year journey of exploration and discovery.

Opportunity made a number of discoveries about Mars, including dramatic evidence that long ago at least one area of the planet stayed wet for an extended period, and that conditions could have been suitable for sustaining microbial life.

After 5111 Sols (Martian days) and venturing 26.219 miles (42.195 kilometers), the Opportunity rover sent its final communication home to Earth, its solar panels disrupted by a severe Mars-wide dust storm. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in Mission Control made their last attempt to revive Opportunity on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2019.

Oppy’s legacy lives on. Curiosity and Perseverance, the next generation of Mars rovers, continue their journey of scientific exploration across the Red Planet. The discoveries made by Opportunity pave the wave for future missions to return Martian samples to Earth for further analysis and investigation for evidence of life.

Image Description: A self-portrait of NASA's Opportunity Mars rover shows the rover in tones of gray; its solar array and “head” standing out against the lighter grays of the Martian sky. This was taken with the rover's Microscopic Imager to celebrate the 5000th Martian Day, or sol, of the rover's mission. The Microscopic Imager is a fixed-focus camera mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Because it was designed for close inspection of rocks, soils and other targets at a distance of around 2.7 inches (7 cm), the rover is out of focus. The rover's self-portrait view is made by stitching together multiple images. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed the Microscopic Imager to acquire the mosaic's component images. The resulting mosaic does not include the rover's arm.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

#NASA #Space #Mars #Opportunity #Perseverance #Cursiosity #MarsRovers #SolarSystem #RedPlanet #ThanksOppy

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## Tags

solarsystem, redplanet, marsrovers, cursiosity, opportunity, nasa, space, mars, goodnightoppy, thanksoppy, perseverance

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