|The Martian marathon route. Courtesy of NASA.| With all the
fanfare about Mars rover Curiosity landing on the Red Planet in
August 2012, it’s easy to forget that there’s already a rover on
Mars – an older, smaller cousin set to accomplish a feat
unprecedented in the history of Solar System exploration. Mars
rover Opportunity is on track to complete the first
extraterrestrial marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles. When
Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004, NASA’s goal was to have the
rover travel a meager 600 meters. However, no one knew what kind
of “runner” Opportunity would turn out to be. As of July 2012,
Opportunity has traveled almost 22 miles – only 4.2 miles short
of a full marathon. Runner-author Hal Higdon once said, “The
marathon never ceases to be a race of joy, a race of wonder.”
That goes double for a marathon on another world where every
mile promises a new discovery. Opportunity’s prime mission is to
search for signs of ancient water. Today the Red Planet is a
bone-dry desert with a breathtakingly