Cover girl 26 passed on America in the morning, leaving the confines of Earth. It's Jim Bohannon on the offbeat fly Me to the moon. Let me play. Among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. Mars is approaching its furthest point from the sun, which means Mars Rovers, which depend on solar panels need every bit of sunlight they can get. Trouble is, Mars is pretty dusty, and those panels get covered with dust. NASA has tried using the deployment Motors on the rotors, which initially unfold the solar panels to in effect, shake the panels. But that hasn't done the trick. Now they seem to be succeeding by trickling a few bits of sand onto the panels. These large particles Bounce off the paddles, taking smaller dust particles with them. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it seems to work and will apparently have to until we finally deploy in dust on future Mars missions. Mars Perseverance Rover. Having shown it can fly a helicopter up there is now kicking in its main science work, driving to a place called the Jet zero crater, looking for any signs of ancient microbial life. In pursuit of that, since the crater has all kinds of different geologic features. They've got a map with optional side routes, and so on. NASA's jet propulsion Labs like is it to an old auto club type map? Or maybe the type of Matt found in cruise missiles? As is trying to find all the rocks out there which could do a serious harm should they crash into Earth. And to that end, they're planning to launch the near Earth Objects. Surveyor Space Telescope. Presumably with a sense of urgency in five years. At least we have one such rock in space, which is no longer a reason for imminent worry Asteroid Apophis or more precisely, Asteroid 9994 to a Pappas It's friends Just call it. 99 was first discovered 70 years ago, and there were fears that the 1100 ft Diameter Rock might be headed our way and that could be very dangerous. 2029 was the first feared approach, followed by 2036, followed by 2068. But now more precise tracking of its orbit shows Asteroid 9994 to Apophis is no risk to earth or at least a century. Still, our advice start planning now. The off beat. I'm Jim Bohannon. America in the morning for Tuesday, June 22nd.