NASA’s Perseverance Rover Team names geological features on Mars with words from the Navajo language

The first scientific focus of NASA’s Perseverance rover is a rock called “Máaz” – the Navajo word for Mars. The rover’s team, in collaboration with the Office of the President and Vice-President of the Navajo Nation, has identified features of scientific interest with words in the Navajo language, as a large group of science Sustainability is based in universities and national laboratories in New Mexico and Arizona, which include traditional Navajo land.

Surface missions assign nicknames to landmarks to give mission team members, who are in the thousands, a common way to find rocks, soils, and other geological features of interest. Previous rover teams have named features after areas of geological interest on Earth as well as people and places related to trips.

Prior to its launch, the Perseverance team divided the Jezero Crater landing site into a square quad, or “quads,” approximately 1 square mile (1.5 square kilometers) in size. The team decided to name these quads after national parks and preserves on Earth with similar geology. Perseverance touches in the quarter named for the Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona.

Tséyi ‘, known as the Cavaon de Chelly in Navajo, has been inhabited by over 5,000 years. Starting with the ancient hunters and gatherers and followed by the Basketmaker People, the Ancestral Puebloan People, and then the Hopi Tribe. After the Hopi, the early Navajo people took possession of the canyons, and they are still ordinary people who call the canyons home, in the heart of the Navajo Nation. Like Mars, the red color of the Tséyi rocks comes from the mineral hematite, and the canyon was carved into the sandstone with running water, which was once also abundant on the Red Planet.

The team’s plan was to compile a list of names inspired by each quad’s national park that could be used to name Perseverance-looking features. Mission scientists worked with Navajo (or Diné) engineer on the team, Aaron Yazzie of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, to seek the permission and cooperation of Navajo Nation in naming new features on Mars.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Vice President Myron Lizer, and the advisers made a list of words in the Navajo language available to the rover team. Some terms were inspired by the Perseverance-designed land at the landing site. For example, one suggestion was “tséwózí bee hazhmeezh,” or “continuous rows of stones, such as arches. Yazzie added suggestions such as “strength” (“bidziil”) and “respect” (“hoł nilį́”) to the list. Perseverance itself has been translated into “Ha’ahóni.”

“The partnership built by the Nez-Lizer Administration with NASA will help revitalize our Navajo language,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. “We hope that by using our language in a mission of perseverance more and more of our young Navajo people will be inspired by the importance and importance of learning our language. Our words were used to help win World War II, and now we are helping to navigate and learn more about the planet Mars. ”

The Sustainability team first has a list of 50 names. The team will be working with the Navajo Nation on more names in the future as the rover continues to explore.

This progressive trip to Mars has created a unique opportunity to inspire Navajo youth not only through scientific and engineering activities, but also through the meaningful incorporation of our language, ”said Yazzie.

However, for permanence to recognize landmarks named in Navajo, “the language” must be taught. The accent marks used in the English alphabet to convey the specific pronunciation of a Navajo language cannot be read by the computer languages ​​that practice perseverance. Yazzie noted that while they work hard to make translations that resemble Navajo spelling, the team will use English letters without special characters or punctuation to represent Navajo words.

We are very proud of our very own, Aaron Yazzie, who is very much involved in NASA’s Mars 2020 Sustainability Mission, ”said President Nez. “We are excited for the NASA team and for Aaron and see it as a great example that will spark more interest in science, technology, engineering and maths and hopefully inspire more of our young people to take up such careers. to make even more effects and donations just like Aaron does. As the mission continues, we offer our prayers for continued success. ”

Scientists on the team have embraced the opportunity to learn Navajo words and their meaning, said Sustainability Project Associate Katie Stack Morgan of JPL. “This partnership encourages the rover’s science team to be more mindful of the names being considered for features on Mars – what they mean both geologically and for humans on Earth. , ”Said Stack Morgan.

The main goal of the Perseverance mission on Mars is astrobiology, involving the discovery of signs of microbial old life. The rover will mark the geology of the planet and the climate of the past, pave the way for human study of the planet, and will be the first mission to collect and excavate Martian rock and soil. accumulation.

Story source: Materials provided by JPL / NASA.