NASA's Opportunity rover finishes marathon on Mars

NASA's Opportunity rover completed its first Red Planet marathon of 42.195 kilometers on Tuesday with a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months, the U.S. space agency said.

"This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world," John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

The long-lived rover surpassed the marathon mark during a drive of 46.5 meters.

Last year, Opportunity became the long-distance champion of all off-Earth vehicles when it topped the previous record set by the former Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover.

By Ruchi Singh

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com

NASA's Opportunity rover finishes marathon on Mars

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