The numbers
- What it is
- A vehicle that drives on another world
- How it gets there
- A lander carries it down
- The very first
- A Soviet rover, on the MoonLong before Mars
- Driven on the Moon
- 56mi(90 km)By the astronauts in their rovers
To get an idea
With the lunar rovers, the astronauts drove about fifty-six miles on the Moon in all.
On Mars a radio command takes many minutes to arrive: driving live is impossible.
Fun facts
These are not in the book: there was no room on paper.
The top speed of the lunar rovers was about eight miles an hour.
On Mars radio commands take many minutes, so driving live is impossible.
Mars rovers get the day's instructions and then choose on their own where to go.
Their job is to drive up to rocks, photograph them, analyze them and send the data home.
Many rovers kept working for years and years longer than had been planned.
Test yourself
The first question is the one printed under the QR code, with the answer the book did not give. The other four only exist here.
Question 1 of 5★ is the one from your book
What is a rover?
Question 2 of 5
Where did the first rovers in history go?
Question 3 of 5
How far did the astronauts drive with the lunar rovers?
Question 4 of 5
Why aren't Mars rovers driven live?
Question 5 of 5
So how do they work?
Riddles
I cannot fly and I cannot land: someone else has to set me down, and only then do I start my work. I have wheels and I go slowly, but I go on another world. What am I?
Nobody can drive me live, because by the time the voice arrives I have already moved on. They give me the day's tasks and then I manage on my own. What am I?
My ancestors drove around a gray world with no air, some of them with two people aboard. I work much farther away, and alone. What am I?
Try it yourself
Look for a photograph taken by a rover: what you see is a real landscape on another planet, photographed by a car.
Look at the wheel tracks in pictures from Mars: they will stay there a long time, because the wind on Mars is very weak.
The words
- lander
- The part of the mission that sets down on the ground and unloads the rover.
Sources: Wikidata (Q1069944), Wikipedia (Rover (astronautica)).