A BROKEN wheel has left NASA’s Mars rover Spirit in danger of being marooned over winter. “We need to drive like hell and get to the hills before the winter sets in,” says Steven Squyres of Cornell University, New York, principal investigator for the rovers.
Spirit needs to find a north-facing slope to maximise the sunlight falling on its solar panels during the coming Martian winter. There are hills only 100 metres away, but the broken wheel is making progress slow.
Squyres says the rover could ride out the winter on nearby “lily pads”, his term for areas angled towards…
