"The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity dragged one of its wheels back and forth across the sandy soil at Meridiani Planum to create a hole," the team responsible for the mission said in a statement.

The rover will use one of its robotic arms to study "the fresh soil at the bottom of the trench for clues to its mineral composition and history," added the team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the Spirit rover moved another 21.6 meters (71 feet, 11 inches) on its way to a crater dubbed "Bonneville."

Spirit has traveled a total of 108 meters (354 feet) -- about the length of a football field -- exceeding the distance covered by the 1997 Sojourner mission by about six meters (19 feet, eight inches).

"Controllers remarked that Spirit's auto-navigation drives are consistently getting faster," NASA said. "These long drives are revealing new and interesting terrain, including more ridges, dunes, ripples and rocks with various appearances."

The two rovers landed on opposite sides of Mars last month in a three-month mission to find signs of past life.

SPACE.WIRE