Curiosity is ready to take on Mount Sharp for its final Martian mission.
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has embarked on the final stretch of its mission. The mechanical explorer will trek across the red planet on a months-long journey to Mount Sharp, NASA reported.
The rover has already completed its primary scientific goal, to find evidence of ancient water and conditions that could host microbial life.
Scientists hope to use Curiosity's final mission to discover evidence of ancient environmental changes on the red planet. The team will look into the layers of Mount Sharp to map out what Mars looked like over the years.
Curiosity finished up its work in the "Glenelg" area and is now heading towards the base of the mountain. The rover moved 59 feet towards its destination on July 4. On July 7 it made another 131 feet of progress towards the base of Mount Sharp, which is about five miles away.
The research team will guide the rover up the mountain, testing its ancient layers along the way.
The rover has accomplished a lot over the course of its two-year mission. Curiosity found an area called Yellowknife Bay, which was found to have been habitable billions of years ago, Space.com reported.
The next, and final, mission is set to take place over a one year period. NASA said the timeline is not set in stone and will depend on the discoveries Curiosity makes along the way.
"We are on a mission of exploration," Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said last month, according to Space.com. "If we come across scientifically interesting areas, we are going to stop and examine them before continuing the journey."
The team made an announcement of the departure on the rover's Twitter account.
"On The Road Again: Science at Shaler complete, I'm on the move towards Mars' Mount Sharp," NASA tweeted on behalf of Curiosity.
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