JPL Runners Celebrate Mars Marathon

JPL employees pounded the pavement in celebration of a Mars marathon milestone. The Opportunity rover took 11 years and 2 months to cover 26.2 miles on the Red Planet, stopping to conduct science all along the way. The JPL team’s time was considerably less, about five hours. The marathon at JPL was run as a relay with teams of runners covering 22 laps around the JPL campus (each lap was 1.2 mile or km per lap). For more information on the rover completing its marathon on Mars, see: