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On the lander in the middle of that crater is a small silica-glass DVD containing the names of 4 million people who signed up to Send Your Name to Mars.
There's a label on the DVD. I designed the label.
There's a label on the DVD. I designed the label.
It was through a Planetary Society project called Red Rover Goes to Mars. (There's a long story behind the name.) LEGO funded the project, so the design featured a LEGO minifigure and 3 machined aluminum LEGO plates that are the standard size. planetary.org/explore/projec… 
The minifig in the center was originally designed to be a lovingly machined aluminum minifigure, also of standard size. It was flattened into a sticker at NASA HQ's request, which was sad, and that's another long story that I won't tell today.
On the Red Rover Goes to Mars DVD disk label are patches of color and gray, which were intended to appear the same colors as similar patches on the Mars Exploration Rover Pancam calibration target, also known as the MarsDial.
Around the edges of the Red Rover Goes to Mars DVD there are little dashes and dots. In this photo -- which is of the engineering model of the DVD, which is on display at Planetary Society HQ -- it's just a repeating pattern.
The DVDs that we sent to Mars on Spirit and Opportunity had different labels. It was actually part of the mission requirements to return photos of the DVDs to Earth before the rovers left the lander. Here are two of those photos. planetary.org/explore/projec…
There are "secret codes" printed around the edges of the DVD. Spirit and Opportunity had different codes, and we challenged people to decode the secret messages from Mars.
This seems like a good place to pause the story. See if y'all can figure out what the messages say. :)
This seems like a good place to pause the story. See if y'all can figure out what the messages say. :)
