MISSION
School’s name is on planet
While the country has been in lockdown a Perthshire school has successfully booked itself on its second trip to Mars.
There was global excitement when NASA’s latest Mars rover Perseverance touched down on the Red Planet on Saturday.
But staff and pupils at Bertha Park High School were particularly pleased because the school’s name is forever etched in history - on the Mars rover.
Principal teacher of science Stuart Smith was delighted when his application to have the school’s name on the vehicle was accepted last year.
The Perth school’s name was carved onto a fingernailsized silicon chip. NASA used an electronic beam to stencil almost 11 million names onto a total of three silicon chips.
And no sooner had Perseverance touched down on Mars than Mr Smith had booked Bertha Park High on the 2026 mission to Mars. The American space agency has sent Mr Smith another boarding pass certifying Bertha Park’s name will be sent to Mars on its 2026 mission.
He told the PA a lot of pupils had asked him about the Mars rover when they were in school but had not grasped the full scientific wonder of the mission until last weekend.
The science teacher said: “I think people underestimated it and never realised how impressive it was until they saw the landing.”
The dramatic landing referred to as “seven minutes of terror” - captured worldwide interest as it happened faster than radio signals can reach Mars from Earth, almost 300 million miles away.
The rover plunged into Mars at a mindboggling 12,500 miles per hour.
Mr Smith said: “Pupils could not believe the speed it travels. There’s then an appreciation of how much of a feat it is to travel at such speed and land on the right place.”
Perseverance is the fifth rover to land on Mars. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida in July 2020.
It will travel across an equatorial crater collecting rock and soil samples to bring back to Earth for scientific analysis.
And it is hoped it could help unlock one of life’s greatest mysteries - as to whether or not there ever has been life on Mars.