NASA Declares a Beloved Mars Mission Over
The space agency will stop trying to contact the Opportunity rover, which was sent to Mars to search for evidence of life.
Updated at 2:40 p.m. ET on February 13, 2019
The Mars probe came barreling in. It streaked through the planet’s atmosphere at about 12,000 miles per hour. With the surface in sight, the parachute unfurled. The probe fired its rockets to slow itself down, and inflated its airbags to cushion the landing. Touching down gently, it bounced across the clay-colored terrain.
When the dust settled, the probe unwound itself, like a flower opening towards the sun, and revealed its cargo: A rover, no bigger than a golf cart.
The rover, named Opportunity, was sent to study what the Martian surface was made of. If there had ever been life on this other planet, the composition
