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Mars Perseverance

As some of you may have heard: Perseverance landed on Mars!

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Okay, okay, but what exactly is Perseverance? Doesn’t NASA already have a glorified toaster on Mars?

Well, it’s not just “a glorified toaster on Mars,” Perseverance is actively searching for signs of life on Mars! The rover is even sending back pictures from Mars!

NASA/JPL-Caltech
The first image from Perseverance!

According to NASA, “The rover’s goal is to study the site in detail for its past conditions and seek the very signs of past life,” as well as being a test run of new equipment that may be used in the future. Essentially, Perseverance is the first step toward all future Mars and space exploration missions, a true #girlboss.

One of the most important pieces of equipment on Perseverance is a dronelike helicopter: Ingenuity.

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Ingenuity is about 19 inches tall and designed to be very light, as Earth’s atmosphere is much denser than that of Mars, meaning it is much more difficult for Ingenuity to fly.

Should Ingenuity be successful on its mission, astronauts could use helicopters similar to Ingenuity in the future as scouts.

Thankfully, both Ingenuity and Perseverance survived the Feb. 18 landing and will be doing what they do best: searching for life on Mars and moving us forward into the age of space exploration.

For more updates on Perseverance, follow it on Twitter (@NASAPersevere). While you’re there, don’t forget to follow The Hoya (@thehoya) for news that is a bit more down to Earth.

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Snapchat Updates Again: Emojis

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If you are an avid snapchatter (like myself), you may have realized that a new Snapchat update is upon us! Oh the joys of ever changing technology!

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Snapchat is now using our favorite texting aid *emojis* to rank your best friends. While this is personal (i.e. only you can see the emojis), this change has still gotten 4E beyond excited!

Here is what the emojis mean:

Gold Heart- This emoji means that you and the other person are #1 besties. You send this person the most snaps and they send the most snaps to you, too. Basically you guys are either lovers or inseparable best friends.

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Grimace/Grit Teeth- This emoji means that the two of you have one mutual #1 best friend. In this case, the person you send snaps to the most is also the person that this user sends snaps to the most. #twins

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Smile- This emoji signifies one of your best friends. You send this person a ton of snaps, from Oscar-worthy videos to that photo you took because you were bored. Sorry not sorry that my best friends have to deal with all my incessant snappin’.

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Sunglasses- This emoji means that you guys have one mutual best friend. One of the people that snaps you the most is also one of the people this user sends snaps to the most. #confused

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Smirk- This emoji signifies the ultimate diss. It means that you are their best friend, but they are not yours. Thank god they can’t see this, but it most likely will make you feel guilty and force you to send them a ton of sympathy snaps.

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Fire- This emoji is the compliment to end all compliments. You guys are on a snapchat streak! Either you are besties missing each other or you are both too obnoxious on social media. Nonetheless, you have been snappin’ back and forth for the number of consecutive days indicated. Congrats!

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But wait, there is more! Snapchat has also installed a low-light camera. This feature is found in the “Moon” icon at the top of the camera and lets you turn on/off a low-light mode for those hard to see snaps.

Snapchat’s final new feature is the “Needs Love” feature, which lists people who you haven’t snapped recently and need some attention from you. Good for Snapchat, trying to spread the love!

Where do you fall on the Snapchat Best Friend scale?!

Thanks TechCrunch for this important news about our favorite app!

Photos/Gifs: ct101.us; iemoji.com; https://emojipedia.org/; https://techcrunch.com/

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Simply Science: Vote to Name a Moon or Two

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Ah, Pluto. It brings back memories of my favorite middle school planetary acronym, “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.” In 2003, though, something about Pluto’s size and location made astronomers at the International Astronomical Union uncomfortable and led them to reclassify it as a dwarf planet, a fact we astronomical sentimentalists too often lament. That’s right, no more pizza; now she’s just making nachos.

But, that is old news. Pluto has had some limelight lately on some of the top science news websites with an exciting new opportunity for the average internet-goer. In 2011 and 2012, the Hubble Space Telescope discovered Pluto’s two smallest moons (from more than 3 billion miles away), and scientists tentatively named them P4 and P5. It turns out, though, that P4 and P5 just aren’t spicy enough names for the city-sized pieces of rock, so the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute is looking for public input. They have set up plutorocks.com, a site looking for the votes of anyone and everyone to determine the new names of these lunar beauties. There’s even a write-in option if you have your own brilliant suggestion!

Sorry, you can’t name it after your Valentine’s Day sweetheart (if you have one); astronomers are apparent admirers of Roman and Greek myth, so the names have to have some mythological origin. Moons are even typically named so to depict some sort of relationship with the main planet. Pluto is the Roman name for the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. It already has three named moons: Charon, the boatsmen who ferried the souls of the dead to the underworld, Nix, the goddess of the night, and Hydra, the name of a many-headed monster that guarded an entrance to the underworld. All of the current options for names are unsurprisingly also related to the underworld, with Cerberus and Styx as the favorites.

You can only vote once a day, and though the SETI Institute seems completely intent on allowing the voters to decide, they remind us that the IAU ultimately has the final authority on the naming of P4 and P5. Never has there been a time when it has been more important for an individual to exercise his/her right to vote on lunar nomenclature than now, in this instant. Don’t be lazy. Click on the link and vote for your favorite underworld-related figure (or just the one that sounds coolest). And don’t be afraid to ask your favorite GUSA candidate which name they support … it’s an important issue.

Click Here To Vote

Deadline: 12 p.m. EST on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013.

Photo: hubblesite.org

*Simply Science is a reoccurring post that aims to make recent scientific discoveries accessible and applicable to the Georgetown student.