When NASA’s Perseverance rover deployed its parachute throughout its death-defying plunge by the Pink Planet’s ambiance on Feb. 18, it flashed a secret code of red-and-white stripes throughout the sky, NASA scientists confirmed in a information convention on Monday (Feb. 22).
Web sleuths cracked the code six hours after studying about it.
The stripes, which radiate from the parachute’s middle in a seemingly random sample of concentric circles, truly spell out a message written in binary laptop code, Adam Steltzner, Perseverance’s chief engineer, revealed on Twitter after the code had been cracked Monday evening. Every string of red-and-white stripes represents a single letter; when learn in clockwise order from the innermost ring of the parachute to the outermost ring, the coded letters spell this message:
“Dare mighty issues.”
It appears just like the web has cracked the code in one thing like 6 hours! Oh web is there something you possibly can’t do? For many who simply need to know: #Mars2020 #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/yTJCEnbuLYFebruary 23, 2021
If that sounds acquainted, it is in all probability as a result of the identical message is written across the wall of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) headquarters in Pasadena, California, and has been the lab’s motto for years.
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The outermost ring of the parachute additionally comprises a set of coordinates: 34°11’58” N by 118°10’31” W — the situation of JPL’s California headquarters.
In Monday’s information convention, Allen Chen, the lead programs engineer for Perseverance’s entry, descent and touchdown, challenged the general public to search out the key message.
“Along with enabling unbelievable science, we hope our efforts in our engineering can encourage others,” Chen stated, as reported by The Verge. “Generally we go away messages in our work for others to search out for that function, so we invite you all to present it a shot and present your work.”
Chen later advised The Verge that there are seemingly extra secret codes and messages hidden aboard Perseverance, a majority of which “won’t ever be recognized — even by me,” he stated.
Initially revealed on Stay Science.
