Send your name to the Red Planet!

As many of you know, a few weeks ago, the perseverance rover landed on the red planet. What many don’t know, is that over 1,2 million people now have their name engraved on a microchip, currently in Mars. How is this possible since no one human has actually been to Mars, you may ask?

On July 30th, 2020, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launched the perseverance rover. About 1 year earlier however, NASA announced their “Send your Name to Mars” program. Around 1 million people from 246 countries participated in this project by signing up on the NASA website. After passing through a review committee the names were then engraved onto 2 chips, the size of a 5-cent coins, as seen on the image above.

Engineers used an electron beam machine that would engrave extremely small figures, less than a micron (1 meter X 10 -6). To put it into context, a micron is smaller than the width of a human hair. On this mission, a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci’s self-portrait was also engraved in the chips (similar to the image aside), as well as a few contest-winning drawings and essays. Over seven months later, on the 18th of February 2021, the rover successfully landed on the red planet on the, with all the engravings on it.

With this successful landing on Mars, NASA plans to send more rovers in the future. Thus, they reopened their program to send your names to Mars. Anyone can submit their names, and once you do, you receive a formal boarding pass for your name, like the one below!

I have already signed my name, have you?