This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

You know, when this little rover landed,

the objective was to have it be able to move 1,100 yards and survive for 90 days on Mars.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein.

And instead, here we are 14 years later,

after 28 miles of travel,

and today we get to celebrate the end of this mission.

Bridenstein spoke at a press conference

at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, today, February 13th, 2019.

The media event was called to officially mark opportunity's demise.

The rover has been quiet since last June when a severe

dust storm covered its solar panels. Only about 140th of the typical amount of

solar radiation was getting through to power the rover and it's been

silent since.

Opportunities very close to the equator so there's lots of solar power.

Cornell University astronomer Stephen Squires talking to Scientific American back in March 2006.

He was the principal investigator for the science payload of the Mars Exploration Rover Project,

better known as the two rover Spirit and Opportunity.

They landed on Mars three weeks apart in January 2004.

The Spirit Rover, much further from the equator, stopped reporting back to NASA in 2010, but opportunity, like

an interplanetary Energizer Bunny, just kept going.

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