The Curiosity rover reaches 30 kilometers traveled on Mars

May 31. (EUROPE PRESS) –

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has achieved the significant milestone of reaching a distance traveled of 30 kilometers on the Martian surface since his arrival in August 2012.

According to the mission’s Twitter accountthis achievement places Curiosity second only to its predecessor, Opportunity (which reached 40.2 kilometers), in distance traveled on the red planet.

Curiosity has traveled through Gale Crater to reach the slopes of Mount Sharp in its center where it has made several groundbreaking discoveries and has provided unprecedented scientific information, as evidence of the past habitability of Mars.

The main objective of the Curiosity mission is to assess whether Mars had the necessary conditions for microbial life in the past. By analyzing rock samples using its onboard science instruments, the rover has already provided compelling evidence for ancient lake environments that might have harbored microbial organisms.

Among other discoveries, the rover recently found undulating rock textures, the mission’s clearest evidence yet of ancient water ripples forming within lakes. According to the mission team, billions of years ago, waves on the surface of a shallow lake kicked up sediment at the bottom of the lake, leaving distinctive patterns that have been preserved in the rock layers.