Land your name on Mars

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 Monday, May 17, 2021 - 09:41

by CATHERINE NUZA
Of all the things someone could send to Mars, your name might not be the first thing that springs to mind. NASA had given people the chance to do just that, they could send their names to Mars. With an incredible response nearly 11 million people’s names have landed on Mars.


Perseverance is a six-wheeled, SUV-sized vehicle. The incredibly sophisticated robotic arm is the most advanced arm the astrobiology lab has launched. With an experimental aerial drone also aboard it travelled the 293 million mile journey to Mars. Immediately after landing it set straight to work taking photos of its new home and exploring the surroundings.
Onboard the Perseverance rover lay small chips no bigger than a fingernail that were inscribed with 10,932,295 names. This was the total that had been submitted by individuals in NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars," campaign. The chips themselves had been created at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
They had taken the time to use an electron beam to stencil each of the names onto the individual chips. They used the “E-beam,” for this task as it is able to provide the accuracy of less than 1 micron. This can be compared to the thickness of a human hair. It would normally be used for any fabrications that would require high precision in the JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory.

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