On Oct. 10 the odometer on NASA’s Perseverance rover reached 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers), surpassing the previous record of 28.06 miles set by NASA’s Opportunity rover. Perseverance is still going strong since its 2021 landing inside the Jezero Crater; Opportunity went silent in 2018 after 14 years of service. Scientists say that Perseverance remains in perfect operating condition, and they expect that it will at least double its current mileage.

Perseverance was last seen heading south to investigate a group of diverse, colorful rocks along the Jezero Crater rim in an area called Rainbow Falls. The 30-mile-wide crater was once a lake, and the Rainbow Falls area is thought to have kaolinite, a clay mineral that forms when water interacts with rock. This mineral may tell a much bigger story of Mars, and the early period of the Solar System.