NASA's Perseverance rover has driven the equivalent of a full marathon on Mars, covering 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) since it landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021. The rover crossed the mark on the 1,890th Martian day (sol) of its mission, five years and four months after touchdown.
A day before the milestone, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed Perseverance from orbit using its HiRISE camera, capturing the rover as a tiny green speck west of Jezero Crater in a region nicknamed "Arbot," with its winding wheel tracks visible in the Martian dust.
The pace nearly doubles that of NASA's previous record holder: the Opportunity rover needed 11 years and 2 months to cover the same distance. Perseverance is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while the orbital imagery came from a partnership between Lockheed Martin Space, which built the orbiter, and the University of Arizona, which operates the HiRISE camera.