NASA About to Pull Plug on Mars Rover, Silent for 8 Months

NASA About to Pull Plug on Mars Rover, Silent for 8 Months
This illustration made available by NASA shows the rover Opportunity on the surface of Mars. NASA via AP
|Updated:

NASA is trying one last time to contact its record-setting Mars rover Opportunity, before calling it quits.

The rover has been silent for eight months, victim of one of the amost intense dust storms in decades. Thick dust darkened the sky last summer and, for months, blocked sunlight from the spacecraft’s solar panels.