On February 13th, 2019, NASA officially declared the Mars Opportunity rover to be dead. After losing contact with the rover during a severe dust storm in June, NASA has been listening intently to try and locate a signal from the rover. However, no such signal was found, and after eight months of searching it was finally concluded that the rover was, in fact, gone.

A photo taken from the surface of Mars by Opportunity.

But the story of Opportunity is incredible. As part of a pair of rovers sent to Mars, its mission was to be a “geologist” on the surface. Using a specialized set of cameras, spectrometers, and tools, Opportunity and its twin Spirit roved for far longer than their original 90 sol (Martian day) mission. By the time Opportunity went silent, it had been on the surface for 5,352 sols, working all day long while its batteries were charged by the solar panels mounted to the top of the rover. Unfortunately, its power source was also its key weakness. Dust from the harsh Martian soil would accumulate on the top of the solar panels, blocking the sunlight from charging its feeble batteries. Thankfully, the wind blowing across the surface could also clean the panels, extending the life of the plucky rover far beyond what would normally be expected. However, in May of 2018, a dust storm began to accumulate on Mars, one that was far bigger than anything seen in the past. This was a truly global storm, lowering the surface light levels to that of a cold winter night for weeks on end. Unfortunately, Opportunity needs a constant power supply to keep its heaters on and stop its electronics from freezing. This was probably what caused the end of the rover. NASA shut the rover down to conserve power, and, once the storm had let up, tried to regain contact with it. After failing to hear so much as a ping from the red planet, they finally ceased operations and ended the mission.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/13/science/opportunity-rover-mars-map.html