A Marathon on Mars Deserves a Marathon at JPL

. 

About 90 employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ran a marathon-length relay around the facility’s grounds last Thursday (April 9) to celebrate a marathon length of Martian driving on March 24 by the Mars Rover “Opportunity,” NASA officials said.

A test rover used during preparations for rover missions on Mars stood in for the NASA Mars rover Opportunity by breaking through the finish-line tape after runners completed a relay marathon at JPL to celebrate Opportunity’s Martian marathon. Eight teams of Earthlings took part, with such appropriate names as “Endeavor Crater” and “Eagle Crater”, in keeping with milestones and locations in the rover’s history on the Red Planet.

You can watch highlights of the marathon relay in a new video, courtesy of JPL.