Has anyone been keeping an eye on Perseverance, NASA’s robotic explorer, since it landed on Mars? Hubby and I have enjoyed keeping an eye on things. It was a nail-biter the day it landed, but all went smoothly. If it’s something you’re interested in you can find more about it here.
Some of the highlights:
7/30/20 – Launched.
2/18/21 – Landed in Jezero Crater on Mars.
2/19/21 – MEDA environmental analyzer records first weather report on Mars. -4 degrees Farenheit (-20 degrees Celsius)
4/19/21 – Helicopter Ingenuity lifted off from Mars surface, the first powered flight on another planet. By the way, did you know a small piece of muslin from the Wright Brothers’ first flight is affixed to Ingenuity?
But one of the coolest things that happened, for hubby and I, was something we were actually able to participate in. We like to geocache. I’ve probably mentioned that a time or ten, including in last month’s blog. It’s urban treasure hunting without the treasure and it gets us out walking and you can find more about it here.
Well, Geocaching.com and NASA got together and planned the best geocache EVER. An alphanumeric code was added to a plate that the Perseverance camera would use for calibration once it landed. It would take pictures of that code and send them back to NASA.
We, as geocachers, were able to dig through the Perseverance pictures and find that code, then log the find on geocaching.com. So we’ve officially geocached Mars and we got this digital souvenir to remember it by.
So far, almost 76,000 other folks have, too! I know I’m being a geek, but this was soooo cool to be part of.
For more information about Laurie Ryan:
Newsletter
Website
Over The Backyard Fence 
Wow, sounds like great fun. I’ve only been following the news on the Rover. I do support space research and exploration. At some point we as a species are going to need more room.
Yes, we are, though I do hope we don’t take over other worlds, but learn to live in concert with them. In the meantime, this is fun stuff. 🙂
Very cool. Thanks for sharing the link. Fun! Jillian
Thanks. This was my annual geek post. Lol.
Have been following Rover with keen interest, as I always do anything astronomic or cosmic. Fascinating to see and learn. Thanks for the link too.
If you like following Perseverance, have you looked for the space station at night? It’s pretty cool to see it cross the skies.
Have seen it a few times but haven’t so far this year as the skies have been very cloudy the times it crosses our way. A wonder to see though.