The Mars rover, Opportunity, which is gradually losing power as Martian dust covers its solar panels, recently experienced an unexpected increase in it's power supply.
Opportunity recently experienced an unexplained rejuvenation from what can so far be described only as two or three significant "cleaning events," said Jim Erickson, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.Posted by jackhodgson at November 5, 2004 11:56 AM...
The rover team has been bandying about theories, but hasn't figured out the cause.
"One favorite is that a dust devil happened to pick the vehicle to go through and go over the surface of it and clean it off a little bit," Erickson said.