Marathon Record

As of Tuesday, the Mars rover Opportunity became the world record-holder for fastest marathon on Mars, covering the 26.2 miles in 11 years, 2 months.

That may seem really, really slow, but Opportunity is the only device placed on another world that has ever traveled the marathon distance in its lifetime. The Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 ran for 23 miles between January and June of 1973. Opportunity beat that mark last July.

Opportunity was only supposed to have a three-month mission when it landed on Mars and began exploring in January 2004. I think there should be a performance bonus in this for somebody.