It's hard to believe that humans — or at least, our robots — have had a presence on Mars for almost 25 years now, with the first rover, Sojourner, having touched down back in 1997.
Since then, NASA's track record on Mars has been exemplary, although it may have seemed like progress in exploration of Earth's neighbor has moved along incrementally. But that's sort of the nature of exploring a planet millions of miles away, where even radio signals between the two planets take up to 20 minutes to cross the vast distance.
So while the rovers have done an amazing job making discoveries so far from home, the newest development is a true technological leap, both figuratively and literally.