With the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Curiosity rover hogging all of the attention lately, many people have forgotten that there's another robot on Mars, the Opportunity rover, which landed on the planet in January 2004.

There was no finish line tape or checkered flag as the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first Mars marathon Tuesday having covered 26.219 miles with a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months, reports NASA.

"This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world," said John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "A first time happens only once."

Eleven years may not sound like anything to brag about in terms of marathon finishing time, but last year the six-wheeled robot became the long-distance champion of all off-Earth vehicles when it surpassed the previous record set by the former Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover, according to NASA.

The rover has far exceeded anyone's expectations. It was initially scheduled to operate for only 90 Martian days, which is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. It exceeded its run-time by more than 10 years, plus made numerous scientific discoveries, like examining the first meteorite found on another planet and discovering evidence that Mars once had water.

It is unknown how much longer Opportunity can keep on going. Its flash memory has worn out after numerous rewrites and is suffering from memory loss.

"[Opportunity] has been amazingly healthy considering how much we've used it -- we thought the mobility system would have worn out a long ago but it's in great health," Callas told Discovery News last year. "But anything could fail at any moment... It's like you have an aging parent that is otherwise in good health -- maybe they go for a little jog every day, play tennis each day -- but you never know, they could have a massive stroke right in the middle of the night. So we're always cautious that something could happen."

Opportunity's original three-month mission in 2004 provided evidence of environments with liquid water soaking the ground and flowing on Mar's surface, according to NASA.

Opportunity's twin, a rover called Spirit, stopped operating in 2010 and became a "static research station" on the Red Planet.