NASA sets off-world record

Many Australian motorists travel more than 40km on their daily commute, but in terms of travel on another planet, 40km is a record breaking effort.

NASA's 'Opportunity' Mars rover was originally designed to travel around 1000 metres, but as Gizmag reports, the tiny rover has passed 40.25 kilometres (25 miles) and doesn't look like stopping.

Although it's not technically a Guinness World Record – a Guinness other-World Record perhaps? – the Opportunity rover's 40-plus kilometre trek beats the previous record of 39km set by the USSR's Lunokhod 2, which took place in 1973 on the moon.

"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," said Mars Exploration Rover project leader John Callas, from California.

"This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometre and was never designed for distance. But what is really important is not how many miles the rover has racked up, but how much exploration and discovery we have accomplished over that distance," he noted.

Overseen by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Opportunity is currently scouring the surface of Mars along with its twin, Spirit, to find traces of ice, usable minerals and the habitability of the environment in general.

Perhaps one day we'll all be driving Martian buggies based on the rover's technology, during our Mars vacations?

The ultimate goal for NASA is to put people on the Martian surface, a mission it expects to achieve in the 2030s.

While the Opportunity rover now holds the record for the farthest distance driven on another world, the Lunokhod 2 still holds the record for its 39 Lunar kilometres driven. It should also be noted that Apollo era lunar vehicles managed almost 37km, those holding the record for 'manned' distance driven.

"The Lunokhod missions still stand as two signature accomplishments of what I think of as the first golden age of planetary exploration, the 1960s and '70s," opined Steve Squyres, principal investigator for NASA's twin Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit.

"We're in a second golden age now, and what we've tried to do on Mars with Spirit and Opportunity has been very much inspired by the accomplishments of the Lunokhod team on the moon so many years ago. It has been a real honour to follow in their historical wheel tracks," observed Squyres.

So next time you clock up 40km, look up to the stars and give a little thumbs up to our six-wheeled rover buddies on Mars.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.