Secret message hidden on the Mars Perseverance’s parachute decoded

Internet users have deciphered a hidden message inscribed on the parachute that allowed NASA’s Perseverance rover to land on Mars last week. “Dare Mighty Things” proclaims this slogan as a design featuring binary-coded letters.

The parachute that was used by NASA’s Perseverance rover to land successfully on Mars last week contained a hidden message written in binary computer code.

“Sometimes we leave messages in our work for others to find for this purpose. So we invite all of you to try and show off your work,” Allen Chen, Perseverance entry, descent, and landing chief, said at a press conference on Monday, February 22.

A message addressed to Internet users who managed to decode a seemingly random color pattern in the video of the rover’s landing in a few hours. “Dare Mighty Things” is written there in binary computer code in the form of a circular pattern that a student at the School of Computing and New Technologies (EPITECH) would have been among the first to decode.

The outer circle of the parachute appears to translate to the coordinates of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California: 34 ° 11’58” N 118 ° 10’31” W, according to numerous tweets posted by netizens.

This was later confirmed by Adam Steltzner, the chief engineer of Perseverance, on Twitter, attaching a detailed illustration of this code to it.

NASA’s mission

As part of a NASA mission, Perseverance landed on Mars at 11:55 p.m. on February 18 after leaving Earth at the end of July 2020. Designed to search for traces of life on the Red Planet, Perseverance will also collect rock samples and regolith.

Before landing on Mars, it traveled more than 480 million kilometers. Equipped with seven major scientific instruments, it is also equipped with a device for collecting samples of the atmosphere.

A “space helicopter” is also installed there, which is supposed to make the first flight over the surface of a planet other than Earth.