NASA's Opportunity rover has been on Mars for over 10 years now, but it's still going strong. And now it's just set a new (off) world record: it's traveled further than any other man-made rover to date.
According to NASA, the Opportunity rover has now traveled 40 kilometers (25 miles) on the surface of Mars since landing on January 25, 2004. This means that Opportunity has edged out the Soviet Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled about 39 kilometers on the Moon's surface in 1973, as the most-traveled off-world rover.
"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," John Callas, the rover's project manager, said in a statement. "This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometer and was never designed for distance."
Despite the fact that it wasn't designed to go this far, Opportunity doesn't seem to be slowing down yet. For the next part of its mission, the rover will travel just over 2 more kilometers to examine "Marathon Valley," where NASA scientists believe there may be several exposed layers of clay on the surface. If that's correct, observations from Opportunity may give scientists a better understanding of Mars' geological history.
You can see a chart of other rovers' traveling distance below in this chart from NASA:
