After five-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Perseverance Rover has set a distance record for travel on another world. Since landing in Mars' Jezero Crater, an ancient paleolake, on February 18, 2021, Perseverance has travelled 45.22 km, or 28.10 miles. That puts it slightly ahead of NASA's Opportunity rover, which travelled 45.16 kilometers (28.06 miles) during its mission. It must be noted, however, that Perseverance took only 5.5 years to travel this far, while Opportunity required almost 15 years.

Comparing the plutonium-powered Perseverance to the solar-powered Opportunity is unfair. But in any case, Perseverance deserves recognition for this milestone.

“The original mission called for no more than 12.4 miles of driving. We’ve blown well past that..." - Steven Lee, Perseverance and Curiosity project manager, JPL/NASA.

Perseverance is currently in a region named “Lac de Charmes,” which is off the western end of Jezero Crater. It reached its new milestone while heading toward a feature named "Idubi," a scientific target notable for its ancient rocks. On Earth, there are no rocks as old as these because they've all been destroyed by plate tectonics.

Perseverance has found igneous rocks, a surprising result considering that scientists expected to find mostly sedimentary rocks. In fact, a primary reason Jezero Crater was chosen as the mission's landing site is because sedimentary rocks are good at preserving evidence of ancient life. While the rover found plenty of sedimentary rocks, it found igneous rocks, along with fluorite, which forms when rock interacts with heated water. This is evidence of hydrothermal activity, and scientists are hoping Perseverance will find more traces of ancient hydrothermal systems at Idubi...