The short answer is “No”. The longer answer follows.
The new object on Perseverance (officially the "photometry calibration
target") has obvious similarities to the “MarsDials" on Spirit and Opportunity
that landed in 2004, and in fact it is a technological and aesthetic
“grand-daughter” 17 years later. (The intervening generation is the Curiosity
rover, which landed in 2013 and is still alive). The MarsDials that a small
group of us designed and fabricated and then occasionally “used” to read
Martian time were a great experience for me.
But after over a decade of Spirit and Opportunity, I decided not to get
involved in any future NASA missions — they gobble up a lot of time! The
science and fabrication of the new calibration target (as for Curiosity) is led
by a group at U. of Copenhagen.
Nobody has ever done anything with the orientation of the shadows cast
by the “gnomon” on Curiosity and I’m sure nobody will for Perseverance either.
By the way, independent of gnomonics, the vertical tube has a vital scientific
purpose: its shadow on the gray and colored patches allows one to calibrate
camera images properly in shadow as well as sunlight.
The various symbolism and messages on Perseverance also stem directly
as “heritage" from Spirit and Opportunity . You can find a tremendous amount
of detail about all aspects of the Perseverance cal target (including
construction) at https://mastcamz.asu.edu/mars-in-full-color/ . The feature I
like best is the motto “Two Worlds, One Beginning”, which nicely refers to
Spirit and Opportunity ’s “Two Worlds, One Sun” as well as early solar system
history and the possibility of early life on Mars. (Curiosity has the terrible
motto “To Mars to Explore”.)
Nevertheless, I watch the procession of missions with great astrobiology
interest. And someday I will write up the whole MarsDial experience, including
many Martian landscape images in which it appears, and how a student and I were
actually able, using its shadow, to measure the Martian analemma at local mean
(“clock”) noon over a Martian year ( = 1.9 Earth years).
— Woody Sullivan
P.S. Description of Spirit and Opportunity ’s MarsDial:
pp. 6-11 in
https://s3.amazonaws.com/planetary/assets/tpr/pdf/tpr-2004-v24n1_200424_191231.pdf
***********************************************************
Prof. (Emeritus) Woodruff T. Sullivan, III
tel 206-543-7773
Dept. of Astronomy & Astrobiology Program Box 351580
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195 USA
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