NASA’s Perseverance rover has introduced the “household portrait” bumper sticker fad to a complete new world.
Uncooked photographs from the Perseverance rover, which safely landed on the floor of Mars final Thursday (Feb. 18), have revealed a small plaque that includes a lineup of little spacecraft.
At first look, the small white decals could appear to be pixelated cats marching throughout the rover’s deck. However upon nearer inspection, the symbols seem to characterize all of NASA’s Mars missions that have made it to the surface of the Purple Planet.
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The rovers are lined up in the identical order that they landed on the Purple Planet: the Sojourner rover (1997), the dual Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity (2004), the Curiosity rover (2012) and Perseverance.
Additionally included is the Ingenuity helicopter, which hitched a journey to Mars with Perseverance and would be the first to aim to fly on one other planet.
Moogega Cooper, planetary safety lead engineer for the Perseverance rover, tweeted a photo of the family portrait simply earlier than it was hooked up to to the rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the place the rover was constructed.
Now that it is out, right here is a photograph of the household portrait simply earlier than it was bolted on! (For these questioning if it was biologically clear, sure… sure it was!). #Mars2020 pic.twitter.com/GSTfA896tQFebruary 22, 2021
Not pictured within the household portrait are the dozens of other landers that different house companies have despatched to Mars, or China’s Tianwen-1 rover, which is scheduled to land on the Purple Planet this summer season.
E-mail Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@house.com or comply with her @hannekescience. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.
