Curiosity has been exploring Mars for 10 years: science review - Space.com

"We're still able to do the same quality and breadth of science that we were 10 years ago, and that's pretty extraordinary.".

NASA's Curiosity rover has hit a major milestone: the robot is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its landing on Mars on Aug.

"Determining habitability requires knowing if there were things like organic molecules — carbon-containing molecules that life needs — sources of energy, other molecules that life needs, like nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen," Curiosity deputy project scientist Abigail Fraeman, who is also a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Space.com.

Related: Celebrate 10 years of NASA's Curiosity rover with these incredible images (gallery).

"So we found, one, Mars was habitable, and two, that those habitable environments persisted for tens of millions of years, most likely, maybe even hundreds of millions of years, which was surprising and exciting," Fraeman said.

"All of the rocks that we've driven through show not only the signature of water when they were originally deposited, but this later overprinting of one or two or dozens of cycles of groundwater circulating through the rocks," Fraeman said.

"One of the types of science that doesn't get mentioned a whole lot, but is really important and really interesting, is the environmental science we've been doing," Fraeman said.

Although Curiosity's original mission timeline lasted just under two Earth years, a decade out the rover continues to be in relatively good health — good enough to continue its work.

Next up for Curiosity is an investigation into what happened to the once-habitable climate of Mars and how long the region remained habitable as the water began to dry up.

While the rover spent the past decade exploring lake environments — most recently, a region where sand dunes formed as lakes disappeared — the team is now sending the explorer even higher up Mount Sharp.

— NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars is watching the clouds drift by and they're beautiful!

— Curiosity rover on Mars spotted from space as it climbs 'Mont Mercou' (video).

— Curiosity rover snaps close-up of tiny 'mineral flower' on Mars .

We're going to get some Thai food, we'll have a raffle," Fraeman said.