Scientist gets tattoo showing Opportunity rover’s final reading from Mars 

Nasa’s rover was pronounced dead after 15 years on Mars.

A scientist who worked with Nasa’s Opportunity rover has honoured the fallen robot with a tattoo showing its final reading.

Opportunity was officially declared dead by the US space agency after it became caught in a severe dust storm on Mars, having spent 15 years on the planet.

Keri Bean from Schertz, Texas, is a mission operations engineer and worked as a tactical uplink lead for Opportunity. When the end of the mission was in sight, she committed to her inky tribute.

“When we first lost contact several team members joked about getting matching tattoos when ‘Oppy’ came back,” Ms Bean told the Press Association.

“I decided that either when ‘Oppy’ came back or when the end of mission was declared, I would get a tattoo to honour ‘Oppy’.

“I chose her final observation, tau = 10.8. Tau stands for atmospheric optical depth, and is the variable being solved for in the equation. I studied tau in my undergrad and graduate career, so it was a perfect fit.”

Ms Bean posted to Twitter about her tattoo, writing: “Clearly 90% of the meaning is Oppy. But the other 10% is symbolizing my own personal ‘dust storm’ of last year.”

Plenty have mourned the loss of ‘Oppy’. The solar-powered rover was only expected to travel 1,000 metres on Mars, but amassed 28 miles and delivered on the search for evidence regarding water.

However, for Ms Bean the effect on the team back on Earth has been the more difficult aspect of Opportunity’s demise to deal with.

“She (Opportunity) lived a good life and lived so much longer than expected,” she said. “What has been heartbreaking is knowing the team is scattering.

“They’re like a family to me, and we’ll never quite have that experience again.”

But while the loss of the rover marks the end of an era, Ms Bean has found solace in the public’s reaction to the news.

“I’m extremely happy to see others also reacting to ‘Oppy’ with the same love and affection that I have,” she said.

“I’m honoured to have been a small part of a team that made Mars an everyday place for humanity.”

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia and Ukraine on Monday traded blame before the United Nations Security Council for the attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said have put the world “dangerously close to a nuclear accident.”

Without attributing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency has been able to confirm three attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since April 7.

“These reckless attacks must cease immediately,” he told the Security Council. “Though, fortunately, they have not led to a radiological incident this time, they significantly increase the risk … where nuclear safety is already compromised.”

The remote-controlled nature of the drones that have attacked the plant means that it is impossible to definitively determine who launched them, Grossi told reporters after the meeting.

“In order to say something like that, we must have proof,” he said. “These attacks have been performed with a multitude of drones.”

Zaporizhzhia sits in Russian-controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine and has six nuclear reactors.

Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been at the forefront since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading in February 2022. Continued fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces — as well as the tense supply situation at the plant — have raised the specter of a disaster.

Ukraine and its allies on Monday again blamed Russia for dangers at the site, with the United States saying, “Russia does not care about these risks.”

“If it did, it would not continue to forcibly control the plant,” U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council, which met at the initiative of the U.S. and Slovenia.

Russia, for its part, said Ukraine was to blame for the attacks.

“The IAEA’s report does not pinpoint which side is behind the attacks,” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “We know full well who it is.”

“Over the last few months, such attacks not only resumed,” Nebenzia said, “they significantly intensified.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N., Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the attacks “a well-planned false flag operation by the Russian Federation,” which he alleged Russia had designed to distract the world from its invasion of its neighbor.

The Zaporizhzhia facility is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. Fighting in the southern part of Ukraine where it is located has raised the specter of a potential nuclear disaster like the one at Chernobyl in 1986, where a reactor exploded and blew deadly radiation across a vast area.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine in recent months has been able to make significant advances along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line crossing eastern and southern Ukraine. Drones, artillery and missiles have featured heavily in what has become a war of attrition.

Russia and Ukraine have frequently traded accusations over the Zaporizhzhia plant.

The most recent strikes did not compromise the facility, which is designed to withstand a commercial airliner crashing into it, the IAEA said.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

FILE - The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, is seen in the background of the shallow Kakhovka Reservoir after the dam collapse, in Energodar, Russian-occupied Ukraine, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. Officials at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant said that the site was attacked Sunday April 7, 2024, by Ukrainian military drones, including a strike on the dome of the plant’s sixth power unit. (AP Photo/Libkos, File)

IAEA warns that attacks on a nuclear plant in Russian-controlled Ukraine put the world at risk

IAEA warns that attacks on a nuclear plant in Russian-controlled Ukraine put the world at risk