The Sad Last Words of the Mars Rover Live Rent-Free in Our Minds

The Mars Rover — or as it was officially known, the Opportunity Mars Rover — arrived on Mars in 2004, for what was supposed to be a roughly 90-day visit to the Red Planet. The rover was sent into space to collect data, which it then reported back to Earth, giving NASA experts a never-before-seen look at Mars.

But, the rover's solar power battery surprised everyone, and the little rover that could spent 15 years gathering intel and traveling the planet instead.

Sadly, the rover's amazing adventure came to an end in 2018, when its battery stopped charging. And, while the end of the expedition would be a sad one for scientists, the real emotional toll ended up being the one it took on the internet when the rover sent its final poetic message back to Earth.

Find out what the Mars Rover's last words were, below

While the rover was programmed to collect and transmit data, it somehow ended up with the heart of a poet. At least, that's what people initially thought when the final transmission from the rover was received. According to Jacob Margolis, a reporter who tweeted out a since-deleted translation of the final data burst received by the rover, the last words were, "My battery is low and it's getting dark."

The message was sent after NASA had spent days trying to contact the rover after a massive dust storm seemed to knock it offline, according to ABC News affiliate 7 Eyewitness News. According to them, NASA issued commands to the robot in an attempt to get it to wake back up before receiving that final message.

Afterwards, in a last-ditch effort, NASA technicians then sent the Mars Rover a song. They chose Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You," according to one employee, who said the tune was picked thanks to the final verse of the song, which contained the apt lyrics, "I’ll find you In the morning sun, and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you."

When the final transmission from the rover was originally shared, the internet reacted strongly to the final words from the Mars Rover. However, that final message may not exactly have been what it appeared, according to Newsweek, who says the actual final message may have been decidedly less poignant.

After Margolis' tweet went viral, he added some more context to what the rover had actually said, telling the magazine that he had taken some creative liberty with the message.

Instead, he revealed that he combined intel from two separate people working on the mission, including a deputy project scientist who told him that the rover had communicated that there was no power left before going radio silent, and a project manager who said the robot had told them that the sky had gone dark and that no sunlight was coming through.

While we like the original message a bit more, the context behind the transmissions makes us feel a little bit better about the Opportunity Mars Rover, which was affectionately dubbed Oppy, being left all alone in the dark for the rest of its days.