Since early September, the amount of electricity from Opportunity’s solar panels has increased markedly and unexpectedly, to more than 700 watt-hours per day, a level not seen since the first 10 weeks of the mission.

“We’ve been surprised but pleased to see this increase,” said Erickson, “The team is evaluating ways to determine which of a few different theories is the best explanation.”

Possible explanations under consideration include the action of wind removing some dust from the solar panels or the action of frost causing dust to clump. “We seem to have had several substantial cleanings of the solar panels,” Erickson said.

clark hoskin figured this one out in 1997

i, on the other hand, have to be different. i’m not going to mash it or quote it or transcribe it. no, i’m going to get all scientific on you instead.

Study: Writing Better Than the Phone to Contact ET [reuters, september 1, 2004]

Writing, rather than phoning, is probably the best way to contact extraterrestrials, American scientists said on Wednesday.

(more from national geographic here).

of course, professor rose is talking about an entirely different issue [with free comic!]. it vaguely reminds me of a consulting gig long ago where i recommended fedex and backup tapes over a terribly expensive data link option, and the “netflix moves more data every day than the whole internet” story. anyway, back to the original point:

audioblogging for aliens is silly.

and it’s all scientifical and stuff.

the plan is to basically park the machines and turn them into weather stations through the martian winter, then kick them back into gear in the summer when there’s more daylight available.

keep your heads down, my martian friends.

hmmm. it didn’t look much like that from my back yard….