Mars Probe May Have Spotted Sojourner Rover

Maggie McKee writes "NASA's eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have spotted the tiny, toaster oven-sized Sojourner rover just a few meters away from its companion, the Mars Pathfinder lander. It appears to have crawled there in an attempt to re-establish contact with the lander after the lander had already died. But the pictures aren't clear enough to definitively ID the rover, and it's possible Sojourner simply took off on its own. If it were miraculously still alive after 10 years, it could be 3 kilometers away from Pathfinder — and probably impossible to find, even with MRO."

What about Mars program?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why don't they try to image probes from Russian Mars probe program [wikipedia.org]? It would be interesting and important to know why did they ultimately failed. Mars 2 and 3 even had small rovers which maybe could be imaged, if they were deployed.

MarsClock for Palm Pilots

[HoneyBeeSpace]

If you want to geek out and track the lifespan of the various Mars missions, you can do so on your Palm with MarsClock [dyndns.org]. If you want the desktop version check out Mars24 [nasa.gov]. Both should be updated for Pheonix sometime this year.

Wondering Mystery

[Tablizer]

This would be great if confirmed. The rover was programmed to move toward the lander station if I did not receive any commands for a certain period of time in order to improve its radio signal with the lander. But without a way to communicate with Earth (probably because the lander's batteries died and that rover relied on the lander for Earth contact), JPL had no way to know what the rover was doing during this time and if this emergency procedure was carried out. Now we may have an idea about how the rover did on its own. Perhaps it even built a clubhouse and spa during our absense :-)

Re:Rovers are signs of intelligent life!

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, the data from NASA spacecraft is generally private to the primary investigator for the instrument in question for a year, after which it's made public. Though, of course, the PI can decide to release bits and pieces sooner if they want to. This is to give these scientists the first crack at analysis and the ability to release papers before other scientists who didn't have a hand in running or designing the mission.

I would speculate that these "let's see if we can spot Pathfinder, Spirit/Opportunity, etc." pictures are a small part of the imaging plan, but since they are unlikely to contain the same level of science return as other targets, they make good fodder for early release to the public.