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Prior to launch, the Perseverance team divided the Jezero Crater landing site into a grid of quadrangles, or “quads,” approximately 1.5 square kilometers in area. The team decided to name these quads after national parks and reserves on Earth with similar geology. Perseverance landed in the quad named after Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly National Monument (Tséyi ‘in Navajo), in the heart of the Navajo Nation. The team’s plan was to compile a list of national park-inspired names of each quad that could be used to name the features observed by Perseverance. Mission scientists worked with a Navajo (or Diné) engineer from the team, Aaron Yazzie of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, to seek permission and collaboration from the Navajo Nation to name new features. on Mars.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Vice President Myron Lizer, and their advisers made a list of words in the Navajo language available to the rover team. Certain terms were inspired by the terrain imagined by Perseverance on its landing site. For example, one suggestion was “tséwózí bee hazhmeezh” or “rolling rows of pebbles, like waves”. Yazzie added suggestions like “force” (“bidziil”) and “respect” (“hoł nilį́”) to the list. Perseverance itself has been translated as “Ha’ahóni”.
“The partnership that the Nez-Lizer administration has built with NASA will help revitalize our Navajo language,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. “We hope that using our language in the Perseverance mission will inspire more of our young Navajo to understand the importance and meaning of learning our language. Our words were used to help win WWII, and now we are helping to navigate and learn more about the planet Mars. “
The Perseverance team has a list of 50 names to start with. The team will work with the Navajo Nation on more names in the future as the rover continues to explore.
“This fateful landing on Mars created a special opportunity to inspire Navajo youth not only with incredible scientific and technical feats, but also by the inclusion of our language in such a meaningful way,” said Yazzie.
However, in order for Perseverance to recognize landmarks that have been labeled in Navajo, the language must be “taught”. The accent marks used in the English alphabet to convey the unique intonation of the Navajo language cannot be read by the computer languages used by Perseverance. Yazzie noted that while they are working hard to find translations that best resemble the Navajo spelling, the team will use English letters without special characters or punctuation to represent Navajo words.
“We are very proud of one of our own, Aaron Yazzie, who plays a pivotal role in NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission,” President Nez said. “We are thrilled for the NASA team and for Aaron and we see him as a great role model who will inspire more interest in STEM fields of study and hopefully inspire more of our young people to pursue careers. STEM to make an even bigger impact and contributions just like Aaron does. As the mission continues, we offer our prayers for continued success.
Scientists on the team took the opportunity to learn Navajo words and their meanings, said Katie Stack Morgan, associate scientist for Project Perseverance, JPL. “This partnership encourages the rover’s science team to be more thoughtful about the names being considered for functionality on Mars – what they mean both geologically and to people on Earth,” said Stack Morgan.
Learn more about the mission
A key focus of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, including looking for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and hide Martian rock and regolith (broken rocks and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples on the surface and return them to Earth for further analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., Built and manages the operations of the Perseverance rover.
To learn more about perseverance:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
nasa.gov/perseverance
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