Last month, NASA invited members of the public to send their names which will be carried on the InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission to Mars.
Those who submitted their names were provided online 'boarding passes' for the mission.
The names are being etched on a silicon wafer microchip using an electron beam to form letters with lines one- thousandth the diameter of a human hair. The chip is affixed to the InSight lander deck and will remain on Mars forever.
A lot of Indians responded to NASA's call for names for the Mars mission. The total number of names received by NASA from all over the world was 2,429,807.
US had the most number of people - 6,76,773 - sending their names, followed by China with 2,62,752 names. India stands at number three with 1,38,899 names submitted for the mission.
"Mars continues to excite space enthusiasts of all ages," said Bruce Banerdt, the InSight mission's principal investigator, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
"The 'send your name to Mars' initiative is something we have done for a number of major NASA missions in the past
not just for Mars missions. It's just a fun outreach activity that lets people engage with the mission," Andrew Good of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California told PTI.
The deadline to submit names was last week.
Space enthusiasts who signed up shared their downloadable "boarding passes" on social media, complete with the total number of flight miles they have collected by participating in engagement initiatives for other Mars missions.
These quakes travel through geologic material at different speeds and give scientists a glimpse of the composition and structure of the planet's inside.
InSight's role is not only to study Mars, but also to gain broader insight into the formation of rocky planets in the entire solar system.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
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