According to NASA, Opportunity became the record holder for mileage among all extraterrestrial spacecraft

This is the path Opportunity has traveled over 10 long years.

NASA has reported that the Opportunity rover, which has been on Mars for more than 10 years, has covered a distance of 40.25 kilometers. According to the agency, this is more than Lunokhod-2 (39 kilometers) passed more than 40 years ago.

True, Lunokhod-2 took just about 5 months to overcome 39 kilometers, and the Opportunity rover took ten years, as mentioned above.

And yes, there is still an interesting point - on the same Wikipedia it is said that Lunokhod-2 covered a total of about 42 kilometers, and not 39. If so, then Lunokhod is still the record holder for extraterrestrial mileage.

If you remember, it was originally planned that the life of the rover would be 90 days, and it had to travel only 1 kilometer. There are no special problems with the operation of the rover even now, despite more than 40-fold exceeding the previously planned life of the device.



Currently, the veteran rover is located in the area of ​​the Endeavor crater, and continues to move forward. Near this crater was discovered freshwater clay, which is direct evidence of the existence of fresh water in the past of Mars.

It turned out that the rock contains a high content of elements such as silicon and aluminum, and some parameters of the composition make it possible to say that this is clay formed under the influence of fresh water. Note that earlier traces of water were also found, but it was salt water with a high level of acidity, which, according to some scientists, was not suitable for life.



NASA expects that soon the rover will be able to overcome the marathon distance of 42.2 kilometers. If the rover becomes a "marathoner", then no one will have doubts about its leadership.

Via nasa