Timelapse of a Mars Rover

Using raw rover imagery and the sound of actual wind on Mars, I painted this little portrait of Opportunity, our faithful little martian rover friend that was lost earlier this year. Losing a rover feels a little like losing a pet. But for all that it accomplished, and for our ability to revel in all the awesome images it collected over its lifetime, its end is bittersweet. Oppy traveled 28 miles on Mars over a span of 14 years - an amazing feat of engineering and human ambition.

After sifting through thousands of raw Mars images for hours and hours, I have developed a strange sense of Mars as a real place I have been, riding alongside this little rover that could, making laps across rocky martian plains. My hope is this little portrait gives you a glimpse of that same feeling. Still can't believe we put a vehicle on mars that lasted almost 15 years. I don’t even expect my car to run that long. Humans are pretty rad sometimes.

Thanks to all the people at NASA, JPL, and beyond who made this mission possible. Thanks to Matt Brealey for help collecting raw images. And thanks to Juan Benet and my Patreon subscribers for their support of this creation: Kalexan, Laine Boswell, Holly, Abraxas, Alina Sigaeva, Ahmad M Alquarni, Amal Isaac, Benedikt Winter, Chris Becker, Aksel Tjønn, Daniel Saltzman, Crystal, Dave & Debbie Boswell, David Southpaw, Eico Neumann, Ezri Legler, Frances Kubat, geekiskhan, Gergo Rostasi, Giulia Carrozzino, Hannah Murphy, Ivan Sivák, James Lyon, Jeremy Kerwin, JousterL, Julio Hernández Camero, Kody Cotterill, Lars Støttrup Nielsen, Leonard van Vliet, Leo Botinelly, Marnix Bruinsma, Michael Li, Mihai Ioan Pop, Mohana Chandiran Dhukkaram, Mitchel Mattera, Nathan Paskett, Patrick Cullen, Patrick Raimond, Preston Maness, Rodrigo Sambade Saá, Randall Bollig, Roman Shishkin, Sean Tham, Silas Rech, Stefan Stett