After two years of Mars enthusiasts asking, “Are we there yet?” the mission managers for NASA’s Curiosity rover can finally yell back, “Yes, we’re there!”

The Curiosity rover has reached the destination where it will begin its main science investigations, the base of a three-mile-high mountain that the science team has named Mount Sharp. As the rover makes it way up the mountain, it will cross layers of rock that contain clues to the early geological and environmental history of Mars when it was warmer and wetter.

“We are here to tell everyone that the next phase of research on Mars for Curiosity can now begin,” James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division, said during a telephone news conference on Thursday.