Today is day 2,816 of Opportunity's 90 day mission to Mars. If you do the math, it means that we've been surprised by how awesome this robot is doing about 30 times over. It's traveled a staggering 20 miles over the last six or seven years, and JPL has put together this time-lapse of a three-year, 13-mile section of that journey.

20 miles on Mars, at a top speed of about two inches a second, is a long, long way. The picture above shows the route that Opportunity has taken to its current position on the rim of a 14 mile-wide impact crater called Endeavor. The video below shows the last three years of Opportunity's journey, as it made its way from Victoria crater to where it is now.

At the moment, the rover is scheduled to stay up on the rim of Endeavor, investigating large blocks of ejected material that effectively allow the robot to "dig down" underneath the Martian surface. Getting all the way around the rim of the crater will likely take the robot many more years, and if it successfully completes an entire circuit, I think we can all agree that it'll finally be time to let it come home.

JPL, via io9