Jul 30, 2014 06:40 AM EDT
Mars Opportunity Rover Sets New Off-Earth Distance Record

NASA's Mars Opportunity rover set a new off-Earth, off-road distance record after traveling over 25 miles on the surface of the Red Planet.

The rover surpassed the record set back in 1973 by a Russian probe on the moon, according to Reuters.

Opportunity reached Mars in January 2004, just a few weeks after the now-defunct rover twin Spirit. It was built to drive only a single kilometer, but it has continued to function beyond its design capabilities.

A few months ago, the six-wheeled vehicle which is about the size of a golf-cart, found evidence that fresh water was once found on the surface of Mars.

The discovery reinforced similar discoveries made by the newer and larger probe Curiosity.

Curiosity is on the other side of the Red Planet.

The rover advanced another 157 feet as it moved along the rim of a Martian crater, putting Opportunity's total odometer at 25.01, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, California.

The Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 rover traveled about 24.2 miles in less than five months after landing on the moon back on January 15, 1973, JPL said.

The manned lunar rover driven by astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission logged 22.2 miles back in 1972.

"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," JPL's Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas said in a statement this week, according to Reuters.

Opportunity is far from finished.

Scientists are planning on directing Opportunity to a local Martian valley that would extend its accumulated operating distance to 26.2 miles the normal length of a marathon, according to Reuters.

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