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NASA's Mars rover, Opportunity just celebrated its 12th anniversary on Mars—a mission that was originally meant to last just 90 days.

Although recently eclipsed in the news by its bigger brother Curiosity, Opportunity is still going strong and making valuable scientific discoveries. Launched into space in 2003, Opportunity bounced to a hole-in-one landing in a small crater on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004.

It has since spent 4,270 Martian days, or sols, on the surface, slowly moving from target to target, exploring craters, meteorites, unusual rock formations, and finding evidence of past water activity. Over the past 144 months, Opportunity has taken more than 200,000 images, and driven a total of 26.50 miles (42.65 kilometers) across Mars—not bad for a mission designed to last only three months.

Workers put final touches to the two new Mars exploration rovers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on February 10, 2003, in Pasadena, California.

Rover 1 (Opportunity) and lander. A “Martian mechanic” checks beneath the completely deployed Rover 1 Lander. Atop the Lander is Rover 1 with its wheels and solar arrays in the stowed position.

On July 7, 2003, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle lifts off, carrying the rover Opportunity towards Mars, at 11:18 p.m. EDT.

On the day of Opportunity's landing—202 days after launch —Pete Theisinger, Project Manager, and Jennifer Trosper, Spirit Mission Manager for Surface Operations react as the first images arrive.

California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger cheers with Dr. Steve Squyres, in the Mission Control Center at NASA's JPL on January 24, 2004, following the safe landing of the Opportunity rover on Mars.

The interior of a crater surrounding the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on Mars can be seen in this color image from the rover's panoramic camera, on January 24, 2004.

This photo taken by the Mars rover Opportunity's front hazard- identification camera, shows a wide-angle view looking down into and across Victoria Crater.

A shadow cast by NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity stretches across the Martian surface in this image taken on July 26, 2004.

An image taken by Opportunity on October 7, 2004, shows a bizarre, lumpy rock informally named Wopmay on the lower slopes of Endurance Crater.

This image taken by Opportunity shows the rover's now-empty Lander, the Challenger Memorial Station, Mars, on February 27, 2004.

Opportunity gained this view of its own heat shield during the rover's 325th martian day (December 22, 2004). The main structure from the successfully used shield is to the far left. Additional fragments of the heat shield lie in the upper center of the image.

The remains of the heat shield that protected the rover from temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it made its way through the Martian atmosphere.

Martian sand dunes seen by Opportunity on Friday, August 6, 2004. The dunes in the foreground are approximately 3 feet (1 meter) high.

The first dust devil (top center) that Opportunity observed on Mars.

Opportunity acquired this panorama of the “Payson” outcrop on the western edge of Erebus Crater during Opportunity's sol 744 (February 26, 2006).

Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, became stuck in soft soil in late 2009, and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010.

Opportunity edged close to the top of the “Duck Bay” alcove along the rim of Victoria Crater during the rover's 952nd Martian day, or sol (overnight September 27 to 28), and gained this vista of the crater.

An example of spectacular cross-bedding in Victoria crater on the outcrops at Cape St. Mary, which is an approximately 15-meters-(45-feet) high promontory located along the western rim of Victoria crater and near the beginning of the rover's traverse around the rim.

A photo from June 28, 2007 of tracks (top center) left by Opportunity as it traveled along the rim of Victoria Crater can be seen clearly in this image taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Opportunity climbs out of Victoria Crater on August 28, 2008, following the tracks it had made when it descended into the 800-meter- diameter (half-mile-diameter) bowl nearly a year earlier.

This view from Opportunity shows the tracks left by a drive executed with more onboard autonomy than has been used on any other drive by a Mars rover. Opportunity made the curving, 15.8-meter (52-foot) drive during its 1,160th Martian day, or sol (April 29, 2007).

Opportunity catches its own late-afternoon shadow in a view eastward across Endeavour Crater on Mars.

An elongated crater called “Spirit of St. Louis,” with a rock spire in it, dominates this scene from the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. This scene from late March 2015