After launching on July 30 to head to the Red Planet, NASA's Perseverance rover is halfway to Mars, the space agency announced.
Late Tuesday, Julie Kangas, a navigator working on the Perseverance rover mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the rover had logged 146.3 million miles as of 1:40 p.m.
HOW IS THE MARS PERSEVERANCE ROVER GETTING TO THE RED PLANET.
Though Perseverance has traveled half the distance to Mars, it is not actually halfway between the two planets, Kangas added, as the sun's gravitational influence impacts the rover's curved trajectory.
"In straight-line distance, Earth is 26.6 million miles [42.7 million kilometers] behind Perseverance and Mars is 17.9 million miles [28.8 million kilometers] in front," Kangas explained.
NASA'S PERSEVERANCE ROVER CARRYING 'SPECIAL' HIDDEN MESSAGE TO MARS.
Once Perseverance lands on Mars at the Jezero Crater on Feb.
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