Homer’s Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone robot sits besieged in the sands of Troy while engineers and scientists plot its escape.
Welcome to “Troy” – Mars style. NASA’s robotic rover Spirit is bogged down on the Red Planet in a place the rover team named after the ancient city.
So why aren’t scientists lamenting?
“The rover’s spinning wheels have broken through a crust, and we’ve found something supremely interesting in the disturbed soil,” says Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis.