Word: spirited
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...then again, there aren't a lot of things like NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, the robotic ships that landed on the Red Planet five years ago this month with an expected lifespan of 90 days and yet have chugged along ever since - surviving paralyzing cold, blinding dust and long periods without sun, all of which occasionally left them silent and still, but only until conditions improved and they shook off the dust, stirred to life and puttered off to do more work. So far, Spirit and Opportunity have beamed home a quarter of a million images...
...dune buggy-size Spirit and Opportunity are the third in NASA's family of Mars rovers, descendants of the 2-ft.-long Sojourner craft, which arrived on Mars in the summer of 1997. Like its bigger siblings, Sojourner came with only a very brief factory warranty - just 30 days in its case - and like its bigger siblings, easily exceeded it, operating for five months before finally surrendering to the Martian elements. It's rarely a good idea to take NASA's estimates of the lifespan of its ships too literally. The agency tends to lowball these calls, making it more...
...rovers were launched atop separate boosters. Spirit left Earth on June 10, 2003, and Opportunity followed on July 7, taking advantage of the biannual close approach Mars and Earth make as they orbit the sun. On solar system scales, a close approach is still a goodly distance - 35 million miles in 2003 - which means that the rovers needed seven months to get where they were going. Spirit landed first, bouncing down in a swaddle of air bags in Mars' Gusev Crater. Opportunity followed three weeks later, landing on the other side of the planet in what is now known...
...including two airmen and wounding at least 32. The LTTE have not officially claimed responsibility, but the message sent by the blast was unmistakable: even if the government is close to controlling all of Sri Lanka, the guerrilla war is far from finished. "They want to take the victory spirit out," says Lakshman Hulugalle, a defense ministry spokesman and director general of the Media Center for National Security. "We can win the war, but this terror will continue for some time." (See pictures of Sri Lanka on the brink of civil...
...aghast as we were watching the attacks on Mumbai, we Indians, as well as the rest of the world, all bear the responsibility of moving forward in light of the anger and accusations that have followed the terror strikes. Countries should work together in the spirit of global human brotherhood to dialogue with each other, share and spread a message of peace in schools and through the media. We have to fight terrorism from within and without, as individuals and as humanity united. Savi Mull, Lucknow, India...