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50 free Mars Rovers trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Six rovers have driven on Mars, and every one of them has a story. Sojourner was a 10-kilogram experiment that was supposed to last a week in 1997 and spent three months sniffing rocks named after cartoon characters. Spirit and Opportunity were built for 90 days and lasted six and fourteen years. Curiosity arrived under a rocket-powered sky crane, and Perseverance brought a helicopter and a parachute with a secret message stitched into it. These 50 questions cover all of them, plus China's Zhurong and the tiny Soviet ski-rovers of 1971. You will meet the schoolchildren who named each NASA rover, the landing sites renamed for lost shuttle crews and a science-fiction author, the Morse code hidden in Curiosity's tyre tracks, the oxygen experiment, the rock with leopard spots, and the Tolkien-themed hills where Ingenuity finally came to rest. Easy questions stick to landing sites and famous moments; the expert tier goes to software bugs, flight spares in the Smithsonian and wind-powered tumbleweed concepts. Every answer is cited and explained.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sojourner, the first rover on the Red Planet, arrived in 1997 as part of which NASA mission?
Mars Pathfinder
It was the first wheeled vehicle to operate on a world other than Earth or the Moon.
Q 02Sojourner was named after Sojourner Truth, who was what?
An abolitionist
The name came from a 12-year-old's winning essay in a NASA contest.
Q 03Who won the contest to name Sojourner?
12-year-old Valerie Ambroise
She was from Bridgeport, Connecticut; runner-up Deepti Rohatgi proposed Marie Curie.
Q 04After landing, Sojourner's lander was renamed in honour of which astronomer?
Carl Sagan
Sagan had died in December 1996, seven months before the landing.
Q 05Rocks at Sojourner's landing site were named after what?
Cartoon characters
Barnacle Bill, Yogi, Scooby-Doo and Casper were among the rocks analysed.
Q 06Roughly how far did Sojourner travel before contact was lost?
100 metres
It rarely strayed more than 10 metres from its lander.
Q 07Sojourner's identical flight spare, later given to the Smithsonian, is named after whom?
Marie Curie
Complex command sequences were rehearsed on it at JPL before being sent to Mars.
Q 08What is the name of the six-wheel suspension first flown on Sojourner and reused on later rovers?
Rocker-bogie
JPL engineer Donald Bickler developed it for the experimental "Rocky" vehicles.
Q 09Sojourner's lander suffered computer resets in 1997 traced to which software fault?
Priority inversion
It was fixed from Earth on 21 July by enabling priority inheritance.
Q 10Sojourner landed in which ancient flood channel?
Ares Vallis
It was chosen as a rocky but relatively safe plain photographed by the Viking missions.
Q 11Spirit landed in January 2004 inside which impact crater?
Gusev
The crater was thought to be a former lake, fed by a channel.
Q 12Spirit's landing site was named as a memorial to the crew of which spacecraft?
Columbia
The shuttle had broken up on re-entry less than a year earlier.
Q 13How long were Spirit and Opportunity designed to operate?
90 sols
Spirit lasted 20 times longer, Opportunity 55 times.
Q 14Spirit became permanently stuck in May 2009 at a spot engineers called what?
Q 21Where was Opportunity when it passed 42.195 km in March 2015?
Marathon Valley
JPL technicians celebrated by running a race of their own.
Q 22What silenced Opportunity in June 2018?
A planet-wide dust storm
Its last message came from Perseverance Valley with the highest atmospheric opacity ever measured.
Q 23Who actually wrote the famous line "My battery is low and it's getting dark"?
A journalist paraphrasing NASA data
Jacob Margolis tweeted it as a poetic translation and later clarified the rover sent no words.
Troy
It was resting on a hidden patch of loose iron sulfate with almost no cohesion.
Q 15How far did Spirit drive in total, against a planned 600 m?
7.73 km
Its right front wheel failed in 2006, so it spent years driving backwards.
Q 16Both Spirit and Opportunity carry metal salvaged from where?
The World Trade Center
The pieces were turned into shields protecting cables on the drilling tools.
Q 17Opportunity landed on which Martian plain?
Meridiani Planum
It rolled to a stop inside the small Eagle crater.
Q 18Opportunity's lander was named as a memorial to which shuttle?
Challenger
Its twin's site honoured the Columbia crew.
Q 19What was Opportunity's nickname?
Oppy
A 2022 documentary was called Good Night Oppy.
Q 20How far did Opportunity drive over its 14 years?
45.16 km
That is more than a marathon, and the record for any off-world vehicle.
Q 24Which meteorite did Opportunity find near its discarded landing hardware?
Heat Shield Rock
It is also called the Meridiani Planum meteorite.
Q 25Which crater did Opportunity reach in 2011 and treat as a "second landing site"?
Endeavour
It had spent two years exploring Victoria crater on the way.
Q 26Curiosity landed in August 2012 inside which crater?
Gale
Its target was the layered mountain in the middle, informally called Mount Sharp.
Q 27Curiosity's touchdown spot was named after which science-fiction author?
Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Landing was named on 22 August 2012, what would have been his 92nd birthday.
Q 28Who named Curiosity?
Clara Ma, a 12-year-old
The Kansas schoolgirl beat 9,000 entries and signed her name on the rover at JPL.
Q 29Curiosity is powered by the decay of which isotope?
Plutonium-238
The generator produces about 110 watts and warms the rover with its waste heat.
Q 30Curiosity was lowered to the surface on a 20-metre tether from what?
A sky crane
The descent stage then flew off and crash-landed a safe distance away.