The Mars rover Perseverance mission is filled with promise, and it appears to have a few surprises in store for us as well. One clever message was hidden on the pattern of the parachute, and it did not take long for internet sleuths to decode it.
The orange and white design on the 70-foot parachute might have looked like an odd arrangement of stripes to most viewers, but thanks to a crossword hobbyist on the spacecraft team, the striped pattern had a specific meaning, PBS reported.