Opportunity Rises...

We're talking about the Opportunity on Mars, the pluckly little rover that just keeps on going and going.  It's been “asleep” for the Martian winter, and yesterday finally got enough power to motor up and roll around a bit.  All systems are working just fine.  Over the next few weeks, Opportunity will get more and more sunshine on its solar panels, and will do increasing amounts of exploration work around the Endeavour crater where it's currently located.

In a few months, barring some mishap, Opportunity will be joined on the Martian surface by a new rover, this one named Curiousity.  This new rover is much bigger, longer-lived, and more capable than Opportunity – but for those of us who have been avidly following the adventures of Opportunity (and it's lost sibling, Spirit), Curiousity will be hard put to match its predecessors...