'Decorative and Useful': NASA reveals 5 items travelling to Mars on Perseverance rover

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover on its journey to the red planet to probe the signs of Martian life has been travelling into space with a myriad of interesting objects that NASA calls both ‘decorative and useful’. In a release on December 19, NASA intrigued the astrophile as it shared details of the 5 key mysterious objects ranging from placards to a slice of Martian meteorite on board perseverance that people were hardly aware of. 

“More than halfway to the Red Planet, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover isn't just shuttling sophisticated science instruments and tubes to be filled with Earth-bound rock samples,” NASA wrote, unravelling the mystery. It stated that the rover was, in fact, crammed with symbols, mottos, and objects that were critically useful and also playful—like the names of 10.9 million people who had purchased the tickets to fly to Mars—virtually. 

In NASA’s own language the rover was adhering to the ‘early space age’ tradition termed as ‘festooning’. In an example, NASA cites an example that the space agency installed the remains from the Twin tower blast onboard Opportunity and Spirit, and a golden record on Voyager 1 and 2, meanwhile NASA loaded Spirit with a memorial of the crew that worked with Space Shuttle Columbia that blasted catastrophically on February 1, 2003. This is the crew of Indian origin astronaut Kalpana Chawla—the first-ever woman to go to space. NASA shared a similar list of key items onboard the Perseverance.

1. Mastcam-Z 

The educational object Mastcam-Z is Perseverance's “eyes," according to NASA. This is a sundial device that helps scientists and astronauts to determine whether it is day or night in space as the camera on the object captures colour and grayscale swatches to determine the position of the sun from space. Interestingly, it has figures of dinosaurs, early man cyanobacteria, a fern as a tribute to early life. 

2. SHERLOC'S coin

As NASA bets, this coin made of a slice of Martian meteorite, and spacesuit materials, including helmet-visor material could be of extreme interest to those that play GPS-enabled outdoor Geocaching. This is a special coin with the address of a fictional detective namesake inscribed on it. Perseverance’s coin is a part of calibration target for ‘SHERLOC’, which is basically an instrument ‘Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals’ that is used with another camera like instrument WATSON which takes pictures in the space. 

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3. SuperCam

This is a favourite of rock collectors and geologists, as per NASA’s guess. This is a laser instrument that bolts rocks and soil and determines its composition from the vapours. Interestingly, the Supercam made a roundtrip to the International Space Station (ISS) even before it was loaded on Perseverance. 

4. Microchip with 11 Million Names

These are the names of people that wanted to fly to ‘mars’ and were virtually launched into space by NASA as perseverance lifted off. The microchip was stenciled with names by NASA which were submitted by the public. Perseverance is carrying three small chips which also mentions the names of 155 finalist essays that participated in the Name the Rover contest.

5. COVID Memorial 

Last but not the least, NASA’s perseverance is carrying a plate which is installed on the left side of the rover chassis. It commemorates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, victims, and healthcare workers that laid their lives battling the coronavirus. The aluminum plate has planet Earth designed supported by the Rod of Asclepius, an ancient Greek symbol associated with healing and medicines. 

(image credit: @NASAPersevere Twitter)

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