Mystery Phenomenon Cleans Mars Opportunity Rover

vg30e writes "It seems that some unexplained phenomenon has cleaned the dirt off the Mars Opportunity Rover. While the Spirit rover is down to 400 watt-hours per day due to the dirt obscuring its solar panels, Opportunity has gone from 500 watt-hours to 900 per day. I wish this phenomenon would clean the snow off my car."

My thoughts

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I've got a theory, and I think you may all agree with me on this:

We've stumbled on an ancient Martain car wash.

It's invisible, of course.

To think anything different would be just plain silly.

Re:My thoughts

[ramunas]

uhm wind?

Re:My thoughts

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Fool!

Re:My thoughts

[rcpitt]

Nah... It's Valentine Michael just having a bit of fun at NASA's expense ;)

Either that or he was just trying to see who was inside driving.

Re:My thoughts

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Who?

Re:My thoughts

[CrimsonAvenger]

/sighs Valentine Michael Smith, from "Stranger in a Strange Land" by RObert Heinlein. He was the guy from Mars, aka Archangel Michael.

Re:My thoughts

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Never heard of it.

Re:My thoughts

[CrimsonAvenger]

Someone arrest this guy for impersonating a Nerd! He's an obvious fake!

Re:My thoughts

[cakefool]

John? that you?

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[mechugena]

Actually, it's Heinlein, not Niven. You sure you're a nerd?

Re:My thoughts

[nomel]

He probably secretly installed something like a windshield wiper on the solar arrays.

damn idiots.

Re:My thoughts

[Alsee]

I think you mean an ancient invisible Martian roverwash.

-

In Other News ...

[thermopile]

In other news, scientists have just heard what they believe to be a radio transmission from the long-lost Beagle 2 space probe. The radio transmission was very brief; it said only, "You're welcome. --Beagle 2."

Theories abound, but some crazy British supporters insist the Beagle2 is hiding behind a rock in this photo [nasa.gov], the last photo taken from the Opportunity rover.

Totaly uneducated guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

Static build up during the day attracts dirt and particles, and during the night, when the machine shuts down most of the way the static charge bleeds away, and martian wind blows the dust off.

Not just uneducated

[PhysicsGenius]

it doesn't even cover the facts. The other rover isn't getting cleaned.

Re:Not just uneducated

[escher]

That's because they used the competing brand of rover softener on that one.

Wipers?

[vettemph]

I been wondering why they didn't just design a slow moving wiper brush to clean the panels in the first place. One wipe every 30 days or as needed.

Re:Wipers?

[Bobas]

That would add additional complexity to the spacecraft, especially as it was not expected for the rovers to last past the period of 90 days.

Re:Wipers?

[vettemph]

Wouldn't it only cost pennies relative to the cost of the whole program to design for a year of service. I would think that you need only keep the panels clear and keep the grit out of the 'sealed' drivetrain.

Re:Wipers?

[Tom Rothamel]

(Btw, instead of a wiper, which could potentially get gritty and scratch the panels, I'd just be inclined to implement the panels such that they can be "flipped over" once a day to dump the dust off -- shouldn't be too hard depending on how they're already mounted.)

The problem with this is that, if the motors that flip the solar panels fail, we have one dead rover. So is it better to live with a slow degredation of the rovers' performance (which still lets them accomplish everythings they need to, almost

Re:Wipers?

[NanoGator]

It was explained before that some of it was a chemical reaction to the panels and that wiper blades would do no good.

Re:Wipers?

[timothv]

I was thinking of a slightly cone-shaped solar panel surface with a motor attached, so it could spin it to blow all the dust off.

Re:Wipers?

[CityZen]

Or they can use a method similar to the cameras on racing cars: Just place a roll of clear film over the panels. As the film over the panels gets dirty, just roll out some fresh clean film.

Alternately, instead of a roll, you can use a few sheets, and provide a mechanism to peel off dirty sheets. Perhaps tiny rockets or maybe grappling hooks attached to a corner? :-)

Hoax?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds very much like a hoax. From the Reuters article ...

"It said something -- or someone -- had regularly cleaned layers of dust from the solar panels of the Mars Opportunity vehicle while it was closed down during the Martian night."

It just strikes me that this was written by a naive reporter at the butt of a Nasa-inspired joke.

Phrase for the ages

[CrosseyedPainless]

You have to love an article containing the phrase "exciting and unexplained cleaning events".

I sure wish some of these would happen in my car and apartment!

Re:Phrase for the ages

[vettemph]

"exciting and unexplained cleaning events".

Have you ever been to that asian salon and massage parlor on Arch street in Philly?

Re:Phrase for the ages

[Tassach]

My kingdom for some mod points! That deserves a +5, funny.

Re:Phrase for the ages

[hillg3]

This is news for *nerds* after all. Anything that could have possibly been a womans doing around here usually is exciting and unexplained.

Re:Phrase for the ages

[Alsee]

So a woman cleaned the rover?
Well that clears up a lot of confusion! Women are actually from Mars and men are from Venus!

-

Re:Phrase for the ages

[DrinkingIllini]

Sure, give us the one which most closely resembles hell.

Re:Phrase for the ages

[Alsee]

Sure, give us the one which most closely resembles hell.

Our natural evolved habitat.
Which explains why "women, can't live (on earth) without 'em".

Chuckle.

-

Snow!?!?!?!

[Kick the Donkey]

I wish this phenomenon would clean the snow off my car.

You insensitive clod! I wish I had snow to clean off!.

We don't get much of the white stuff here in Georgia, USA....

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[MindStalker]

Dude, I fell out of my chair, thanks for the laugh.

For the record I live in northern florida and am exposed to many south georgians, especially the ones who think Eygpt stole Cario from them.

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[w3weasel]

Cairo Georgia is pronounced 'Kay-row'... duh! How could Egypt have stolen then name when they don't even say it right!

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[MindStalker]

Of course don't forget Georgia was the original home of Athens, Paris, and a host of other international names.

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[ViolentGreen]

Yeah, Kentucky has Versailles (pronounced Ver-sails), Bagdhad, Athens (pronounced with a long A), Paris, London and Frankfort (as opposed to Frankfurt.) I'm sure I'm missing a few as well. Anyway, these cities are all just as nice if not nicer than their international counterparts.

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[TFGeditor]

"...don't forget Georgia was the original home of Athens, Paris, and a host of other international names."

I beg your pardon!

That distinction belongs to Texas, sir. We also lay claim to London and Palestine.

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[Ender_Stonebender]

What? Everyone knows the original Cairo is the one in upstate New York. It's pronounced "Care-Oh" and shares a school district with Durham. (Beyond that, I know nothing about it. I grew up there and heard school closing reports on the radio. Didn't even now how it was spelled until I was a teenager.)

--Ender

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[Jahf]

Believe me, going from Georgia (or in my case Alabama for a few years) to -real- snow is a major event.

I haven't seen my yard in 2 months and probably won't for another 3-4. Snow is nice ... but only as Mason-Dixon line levels :)

Yeah, I know... :-(

[Richard Steiner]

As a recent transplant from the Twin Cities to Smyrna, I find myself missing the white stuff.

On the bright side, I've been able to wear shorts outside every day so far. it's only gotten down into the teens! :-)

Re:Yeah, I know... :-(

[cakefool]

|snip|...shorts...down...into...teens...|snip|

The horror!

Re:Yeah, I know... :-(

[Alyred]

Bah, those of us from Alaska wear shorts all the time down here in the "warmer states".

Re:Snow!?!?!?!

[TFGeditor]

You're kidding? As I type this, it has been snowing since 0600 with an inch of accumulation here--in Texas!

Someone has to say it...

[MarkGriz]

I, for one, welcome our little green dirt cleaning overlords.

Re:Someone has to say it...

[LordEd]

Didn't the great Gazoo do a cleaning commercial once?

Re:Someone has to say it...

[stupid_is]

But....

In Soviet Russia, dirt cleans You

Someone cleaned it?

[Tyrell Hawthorne]

This sounds interesting, and I'm looking forward to an answer to what did it. However, the "It said something -- or someone -- had regularly cleaned layers of dust from the solar panels" sounds very unscientific. Did the New Scientist magazine really say this?

Re:Someone cleaned it?

[dmatos]

I figure it was the telephone sanitizers. The hairsylists still haven't found anything to do yet.

Hey, if we can't build interstellar ships, we'll have to make do with interplanetary, right?

Re:Someone cleaned it?

[Bearpaw]

However, the "It said something -- or someone -- had regularly cleaned layers of dust from the solar panels" sounds very unscientific. Did the New Scientist magazine really say this?

I haven't read the latest issue yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did phrase it that way. It's not unscientific, it's just a bit of British humor. (New Scientist is based in the UK and isn't exactly a formal journal.)

Rain.

[skinfitz]

It's happened before (rover getting cleaned) and it will continue to happen.

It rains on Mars.

Re:Rain.

[Vacuum Sux]

At least one could imagine that something like dew of some sort of molecule could form on the solar panels during the night when the temperature falls. Droplets of this could then coalesce and fall off the panels taking dirt with it as water droplets on Lotus leafs. I don't know anything about the materials on the outer layer of the panels and what molecules would condense (CO2?) on it though, and what type of interaction one would be able to expect between them.

Re:Rain.

[orion41us]

Could be, but if I remember correctly CO2 is never a liquid.

Re:Rain.

[Chuckstar]

CO2 can be liquid. But it take relatively high-pressure.

The atmospheres on both Mars and Earth are too low for CO2 to liquify. If chilled enough, it turns to a solid.

Re:Rain.

[harrkev]

It rains on Mars.

It is much more likely that NASA is now in posession of a photograph of a green guy in dingy clothes holding his hand out for a quarter.

Maybe it was some phenomenon

[selfsealingstembolt]

know to mankind as "wind" which sometimes is able to "blow" dust "around".

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[p00ya]

Are you forgetting how thin Mars' atmosphere is? I can't think of a better explanation, but it might not be as obvious as you think.

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[orion41us]

Yes, it's thinner - about 1% compared to earths sea level. but it has wind never-the-less... Every so often powerfull wind storms powered by the sun on mars pickup so much dust that most of the serface becomes obscured. More info: here [nasa.gov]

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[Chuckstar]

If the air was too thin to carry dust, how would the dust get on the solar panels?

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[ChickenAintDone]

Well if the wind does carry the dust on to the panel, can you expect the same wind to carry it off the panel instead of add more?

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[Colonel Angus]

If, as it traverses between different areas, yes. One area is dusty, high winds carry dust on to the panels. As it continues on its mission it travels into new terrain. A more rocky area with less dust than before, now the wind is blowing more dust off than it is placing on.

Re:Maybe it was some phenomenon

[Chuckstar]

Wind is not a constant phenomenon. Maybe the effect of slow wind is a net deposit of dust and the effect of a fast wind is a net removal of dust.

With apologies to Douglas Adams...

[Country_hacker]

"And hey, what's about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that ... wind! Is that a good name? It'll do ... perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it..."

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence...

Just goes to show...

[Black Parrot]

Women are from Mars.

At every corner...

[Basilisk]

... there stands a martian squeegee kid.

Latest photo from Mars rover...

[ccarr.com]

http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/2000/February/3/photos/s queegee.gif [gazette.uwo.ca]

I remember this story from a while ago...

[mOoZik]

Maybe at least two months ago? Regardless, this is pretty neat. I can picture a martian standing there with a piece of cloth. Every time he wipes, he expects something in return. Alas, the rover ignores the poor martian and spares not three Martian cents.

The squeegee guy

[cylcyl]

is apparently the first guy on Mars

I know, I know

[DogBarf]

It's the phone sanitizers!

Re:I know, I know

[mynameismonkey]

Far too few people got this reference.

Maybe..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Maybe they also packed a Roomba?

One rover washes the other.

[Doc Ruby]

They've got 2 rovers, with dirty solar panels their main lifespan factor. Why don't they get the rovers to clean each other's panels? How much extra weight is a 3" squeegee? The existing control SW seems close enough to manage the motion, or maybe just a little extra code for the operation. If they gouge the dying panel, they've lost nothing; if it works, they've doubled their capability, and perpetuated it.

Re:One rover washes the other.

[cakefool]

Not counting the ability to only explore one area of the planet, not two (you do know they didn't land side by side don't you?) and the complexity of a system to clean the panels of another rover - far more difficult than cleaning their own panels.

shall I go into how the degredadion is not only due to dust, but also radiation damage and chemical degredation?

Re:One rover washes the other.

[Doc Ruby]

This story is about disappearing, wipeable dust. And my suggestion is not complex: just add a brush, and use the existing mobility to clean. The long commute for the cleanup, though, is more problematic. Another way is to include a brush on an area of fuzzy cloth, have the rover drop it on a rock, and rub against it. Simple mechanism, using the planet itself as part of the structure.

Re:One rover washes the other.

[rk]

Hint 1: MER A is in Gusev Crater (14.6 degrees south, 175.3 degrees east). MER B is in Terra Meridiani (2.0 degrees south, 354.1 degrees east). Mars has a radius of about 3400 kilometers. Do the math.

Hint 2: Try to get water to exist as a liquid at .01 atmospheres pressure and below zero temperatures.

Hint 3: Try to clean micron fine dust off a smooth surface with a dry squeegee.

Hint 4: If you think you can overcome all this, engineer the system such that it can survive thermal vac and vibration

Re:One rover washes the other.

[jericho4.0]

It wouldn't be cheap, but almost doubling the power by cleaning the panels seems like a good reason to do it.

Conspiracy: Mars

[francisew]

After the whole mooon landing hoax ;), NASA still hasn't learned to keep the janitors from having keys into their top-secret sound-stages. One of the cleaners saw the poor little dirty machine, and decided to give it a thorough scrubbing.

I hope they take better care of the dolphins with lasers on their heads.

I hope Opportunity carries some spare change

[jope]

Duh, that's obvious. It was one of those bums that run up and wash your windshield at a traffic light, then try to demand payment.

For more information

[bill_mcgonigle]

Check out this site [slashdot.org].

Re:For more information

[jericho4.0]

That article [space.com] (Nov. 5) mentions a 2-5% increase in power and says Opportunity is operating at ~820 watt-hours. While this article says Opportunity went from 500 to 900 watt-hours.

The real numbers are probably less mysterious.

The PROOF!

[herwighenseler]

This is the final proof ... there IS water on the mars! Can there be a better evidence?

Re:The PROOF!

[drinkypoo]

If there was enough water to matter it would probably make cement on the panel and the panels would definitely collect moisture at night...

Richard Hoagland was right!

[ArtStone]

The face on mars stuck out its tongue and cleaned the solar panels.

Or maybe it rained in the Arizona desert unexpectedly.