“Data from the transmission let engineers know the rover still has enough battery charge to communicate with ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained. The dust storm, which NASA describes in a press release as "a dark, perpetual night," has blanketed over Mars' Perseverance Valley where the rover is currently planted. Now that the area it is stationed in — the vast Martian plains of Meridiani Planum — is blanketed in this huge dust storm, the sunlight that Opportunity receives has diminished significantly. Judging by its atmospheric opacity level or tau of 10.8, this is the worst storm that the Opportunity rover ever had to weather in terms of visibility. This latest data transmission showed the rover’s temperature to be about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius). Opportunity, which was designed for a 90-day mission, has survived on Mars for 15 years, and if it can somehow circumvent this massive dust storm as well, it would be a great compliment to its unwavering tenacity. (Photo : NASA | JPL-Caltech | MSSS)

NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars is getting slammed by a continuously growing dust storm that's bigger than the entire North America continent. First detected by NASA on June 1, the storm ballooned to more than 18 million square.km and included the Opportunity’s current location at Perseverance Valley in the Red Planet by June 8. It now spans more than 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers) — an area greater than North America — and includes Opportunity’s current location at Perseverance Valley. Conducting research is pretty tough with dust and debris flying around, but being caught in the storm isn’t just a bummer from a scientific standpoint; Opportunity’s power comes from batteries linked to solar panels, and those solar panels don’t work well when the skies aren’t clear. With so much interest in what NASA’s Curiosity rover has been up to recently — with the whole “maybe finding evidence of life” and whatnot — it’s easy to forget that it isn’t the only rover making tracks on the Red Planet. “There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear.”

This isn’t the first time Opportunity has dealt with dust storm since it arrived on Mars in January 2004. On Mars, dust storms can crop up suddenly, NASA said in a statement, but it could take weeks or even months for them to subside.
NASA's Opportunity rover is temporarily shut down due to a dust storm.