Watch the epic journey of NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars in this awesome time-lapse video

Thousands of frames are stitched together here to show the entirety of Spirit’s mission on the Red Planet.

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This video, made of over 3,000 frames from Spirit’s front-right hazcam, shows the entirety of its journey on the Red Planet spanning 7.7 kilometres (4.8 miles) over 5 years, 3 months and 27 days.

The Spirit rover ultimately succumbed to the harsh environment on Mars when it got suck in Martian soil on 1 May 2009. You can see the rover’s ultimately futile attempts to free itself towards the end of the video.

Still, having travelled so far and lasting 2,269 Earth days, exceeding its original mission goal of just 90 days, we’d say this mission was a huge success for NASA.

It’s sister rover Opportunity continues to scour the Martian surface while their successor, Curiosity, is just starting to make headway towards Mount Sharp.

Below, you can see the path Spirit took across the surface of Mars:

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/Cornell/NM Museum of Natural History and Science

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