{"id":5746,"date":"2019-02-25T09:51:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T14:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5746"},"modified":"2025-08-13T18:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T22:53:08","slug":"when-does-90-days-equal-16-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2019\/02\/25\/when-does-90-days-equal-16-years\/","title":{"rendered":"When does 90 days equal 16 years?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The longest lasting planet-roving robot in history may have died.\u00a0 The Mars Rover Opportunity was launched from the Earth on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004.\u00a0 The probe was designed to last 90 days, but remained operational through June 10, 2018– 14 years, 4.5 months.<\/p>\n

Opportunity\u2019s official name is MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover \u2013 B).\u00a0 It landed on Meridiani Planum and its twin probe Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet.\u00a0 Spirit functioned until it became stuck in the sand in 2009.\u00a0 Communication with Spirit ended in 2010.<\/p>\n

Opportunity was active until June 10, 2018, when a global dust storm forced it into hibernation mode.\u00a0\u00a0 Opportunity was partially buried and has not woken up from its hibernation despite hundreds of attempts from NASA to reactivate it.<\/p>\n

What has Opportunity done in its active life on Mars?\u00a0 For starters, it operated over 55 times its designed lifespan and traveled a distance of 28.06 miles across the planet.\u00a0 The probe also took pictures of extramartian\u00a0meteorites and completed a two-year study of the Victoria crater. Opportunity also found evidence of past water flows on Mars and took close-ups of water carried sediments.<\/p>\n

In total, Opportunity took 217,594 images.\u00a0 Looking at these images kind of gives you a feeling of being on Mars.\u00a0 The sky is an orange-pink color.\u00a0 \u00a0The ground is a dark orange to almost red color.\u00a0 The rocks visible in the images cover every imaginable color.\u00a0 Some are white, some are black and some are the ever-present reddish pink found all over Mars.\u00a0 If you would like to see these images of Mars, go to https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/mer\/multimedia\/images\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Opportunity Probe, go to https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/mer\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE NIGHT SKY OVER AROOSTOOK COUNTY<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of the times and events listed below are from www.calsky.com.\u00a0 You may register at this site and load your location (anywhere in the world) to be able to get event information and times.\u00a0 The University of Maine at Presque Isle is located at 68d00m7.8s west longitude and 46d40m45.6s north latitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The International Space Station is visible as follows:<\/p>\n

Morning \u2013 Feb. 22 to March 17.<\/p>\n

Evening – March 20 to April 9.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To get a free sky chart go to www.skymaps.com.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sun and Planet Visibility<\/p>\n

03\/01\/2019<\/p>\n

06:11 Sunrise.<\/p>\n

17:17 Sunset.<\/p>\n

17:48 \u2013 18:54 Mercury.<\/p>\n

04:30 \u2013 06:12 Venus.<\/p>\n

17:48 \u2013 22:42 Mars.<\/p>\n

02:06 \u2013 06:00 Jupiter.<\/p>\n

03:54 \u2013 05:42 Saturn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

03\/10\/2019<\/p>\n

06:45 Sunrise.<\/p>\n

18:37 Sunset.<\/p>\n

Not Visible Mercury.<\/p>\n

05:24 \u2013 06:48 Venus.<\/p>\n

19:06 \u2013 23:30 Mars.<\/p>\n

02:18 \u2013 06:30 Jupiter.<\/p>\n

04:00 \u2013 06:18 Saturn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

02\/12 17:26 First Quarter Moon.<\/p>\n

02\/13 01:20 Mars 1.0 degrees from Uranus.<\/p>\n

02\/15 Galileo Galilei\u2019s 450th<\/sup> birthday (1564).<\/p>\n

02\/18 05:52 Venus 1.1 degrees from Saturn.<\/p>\n

02\/19 00:25 Mercury 0.65 degrees from Neptune.<\/p>\n

02\/19 04:09 Moon at perigee \u2013 closest to the Earth (221,682 miles, 356,763 km).<\/p>\n

02\/19 10:53 Full Moon.<\/p>\n

02\/22 06:03 ISS 1.3 degrees from Jupiter.<\/p>\n

02\/24 05:56 ISS 0.4 degrees from the moon.<\/p>\n

02\/25 03:00 Mercury at perihelion \u2013 closest to the sun (28,574,614 miles, 45,986,385 km).<\/p>\n

02\/25 05:07 ISS passes 1.3 degrees from Alpha Aquila (Altair).<\/p>\n

02\/26 06:27 Last Quarter Moon.<\/p>\n

02\/26 11:00 Mercury at half phase.<\/p>\n

02\/26 20:24 Mercury at greatest eastern elongation \u2013 18.1 degrees \u2013 visible in the evening sky.<\/p>\n

02\/27 06:00 Moon 2.3 degrees from Jupiter.<\/p>\n

03\/01 05:42 Moon 3.5 degrees from Saturn.<\/p>\n

03\/02 06:12 Moon 4.8 degrees from Venus.<\/p>\n

03\/04 06:39 Moon at apogee \u2013 Farthest from the Earth (252,509 miles, 406,375 km).<\/p>\n

03\/06 11:04 New Moon.<\/p>\n

03\/11 19:00 Moon 6.6 degrees from Mars.<\/p>\n

03\/14 PI Day.<\/p>\n

03\/14 06:27 First Quarter Moon.<\/p>\n

03\/14 21:48 Mercury passes between the Earth and the sun.<\/p>\n

03\/19 15:54 Moon at perigee \u2013 Closest to the Earth (223,312 miles, 359,387 km).<\/p>\n

03\/20 17:58 March Equinox \u2013 Spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

03\/20 21:42 Full Moon.<\/p>\n

03\/22 20:32 ISS passes 0.6 degrees from Beta Orion (Rigel).<\/p>\n

03\/22 20:33 ISS passes 0.7 degrees from Zeta Orion (Alnitak).<\/p>\n

03\/23 21:17 ISS passes 0.5 degrees from Mars.<\/p>\n

03\/24 13:27 Mercury 2.5 degrees from Neptune.<\/p>\n

03\/27 02:18 Moon 2.7 degrees from Jupiter.<\/p>\n

03\/28 00:09 Last Quarter Moon.<\/p>\n

03\/29 03:54 Moon 2.1 degrees from Saturn.<\/p>\n

03\/31 20:21 Moon at apogee \u2013 Farthest from the Earth (251,995 miles, 405,547 km).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The longest lasting planet-roving robot in history may have died.\u00a0 The Mars Rover Opportunity was launched from the Earth on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004.\u00a0 The probe was designed to last 90 days, but remained operational through June 10, 2018– 14 years, 4.5 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8525,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions\/8525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}