Update, 11/15/18, 6:45pm : NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that the data received by the Deep Space Network was not from the Opportunity rover. "Today [the Deep Space Network website] showed what looked like a signal from Opportunity," JPL said in a tweet. "As much as we'd like to say this was an #OppyPhoneHome moment, further investigation shows these signals were not an Opportunity transmission. Test data or false positives can make it look like a given spacecraft is active on [the Deep Space Network website]. Our work to reestablish comms continues."

Opportunity, a NASA rover that has rolling across Mars since 2004, appears to have suddenly woken up from a five month slumber. On Thursday afternoon, NASA’s Deep Space Network registered a downlink connection from Opportunity, which appeared to be transmitting at 11 bytes per second. This is a painfully slow data connection, but it’s being greeted with a cautious enthusiasm by planetary scientists and space heads who thought they’d never hear from the rover again.

Motherboard called NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory communications office to confirm the downlink connection. NASA was unable to confirm the downlink or provide additional details at the time, but we will update this post when we know more.

Image of the Martian sky as a dust storm engulfed the planet. Image: NASA

In June, NASA lost contact with the rover after a planet-wide dust storm engulfed Mars. The rover entered a hibernation mode shortly after contact was lost and researchers hoped they’d be able to wake the rover up once the Martian atmosphere was clear enough to send a signal from the ground to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the planet and relaying data back to Earth.