An amazing work by the Uzbek artist Rostislav Shekhovtsov, titled “It’s time to go home, Oppy”. The digital painting shows two future astronauts finding the dust-covered Opportunity rover on Mars.

NASA has called an end to the Opportunity rover’s epic Mars mission on February 13, 2019, after a final attempt to make contact on February 12.

Time to go home, Oppy by Rostislav Shekhovtsov
“It’s time to go home, Oppy” by Rostislav Shekhovtsov. You can see the original image on the artist’s Instagram page.

In his touching work, Shekhovtsov depicted the Opportunity Mars rover covered with Martian dust. Two future astronauts find the rover, wake it up and say “It’s time to go home, Oppy”. You can see the astronauts’ spacecraft in the background, which looks inspired by the SpaceX’ Starship.

Opportunity looks almost alive, it looks like there is a touching expression, like thankfulness on its “face”. It’s like the rover is saying “finally you’re here to save me”.

Opportunity was launched on July 7, 2003. It landed in Meridiani Planum, a plain located 2 degrees south of Mars’s equator on January 25, 2004.

The rover had a planned 90-sol (Martian day) duration of activity (slightly more than 90 earth days). It was able to stay operational for 5353 sols (Martian days, which is slightly longer than an Earth’s day) after landing.

After Opportunity declared dead by NASA after record-breaking 15 years on Mars, #ThanksOppy became a popular hashtag on Twitter as a lot of people mourned the death of the Mars rover.

M. Özgür Nevres

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