![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A-map-of-the-Perseverance-Mars-rover-marathon-credit-NASA-1024x576.jpg\")
A map of the Perseverance Mars rover marathon \u2013 credit, NASA<\/p>\n A map of the Perseverance Mars rover marathon \u2013 credit, NASA<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Perseverance Mars rover just completed a special milestone as it recently marked 5 years on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n
The robotic science lab has put 26.2 miles under its wheels: in other words, a marathon.<\/p>\n
Having conducted hundreds of experiments so far, the rover\u2019s data has already helped refine our understanding of the Martian surface, and in celebration of its marathon achievement, a summary of success is in order.<\/p>\n
Through its drilling efforts at the bottom of Jezero Crater, where it landed, Perseverance has helped scientists confirm<\/a> that the crater at some point was filled with water, leaving lake sediments at its base.<\/p>\n In 2022, the rover drove up from the crater floor onto the delta, a vast expanse of 3-billion-year-old sediments that, from orbit, resembles river deltas on Earth.<\/p>\n As the rover drove onto the delta, its\u202f Radar Imager for Mars\u2019 Subsurface Experiment instrument (RIMFAX) fired radar waves downward at 10-centimeter intervals and measured pulses reflected from depths of about 65-feet below the surface (20 meters). With the radar, scientists can see down to the base of the sediments to reveal the top surface of the buried crater floor.<\/p>\n The images showed that the sediments are regular and horizontal\u2014just like sediments deposited in lakes on Earth.<\/p>\n That same year, the rover captured video footage<\/a> of a Martian solar eclipse with the tiny moon Phobos. The potato-shaped sphere doesn\u2019t block out the sun, but was still cool to watch.<\/p>\n Perseverance\u2019s Mastcam-Z has a solar filter that acts like sunglasses to reduce light intensity. This allowed for unrivaled color and detail to appear in the eclipse video.<\/p>\n By the end of 2023, Perseverance had finished exploring Jezero crater, and began exploring\u00a0the furthest reaches of the canyon<\/a> where the river would have flown into the lake. Rich carbonate deposits had been spotted along the margin which stood out in orbital images.<\/p>\n \u201cWe picked Jezero Crater as a landing site because orbital imagery showed a delta\u2014clear evidence that a large lake once filled the crater. A lake is a potentially habitable environment, and delta rocks are a great environment for entombing signs of ancient life as fossils in the geologic record,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Perseverance\u2019s project scientist, Ken Farley of Caltech.<\/p>\n In April 2025, Perseverance was back with its head down, studying the Martian geology at the fastest rate since the early sample gathering in Jezero.<\/p>\n By then it had summited the crater rim, and conducted almost 100 sampling efforts.<\/p>\n This included some of the earliest molten rock to form on Mars, and formerly underground boulders juxtaposed with well-preserved layered rocks and other masses that seem to have been sculpted by running water; a veritable rock bonanza that may have also included the oldest sample yet.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/The-Martian-surface-outside-of-Jezero-Crater-appears-strikingly-different-compared-to-the-sandy-red-.jpeg\")
The Martian surface outside of Jezero Crater appears strikingly different compared to the sandy red bed of the crater floor \u2013 Credit NASAJPL-CaltechASUMSSS<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/solar-eclipse-on-Mars-by-JPL-NASA-1024x559.jpg\")
JPL \/ NASA video<\/p>\n