Penny payload
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 1:03
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collectSPACE.com
A Lincoln penny is now on its way to Mars, NASA announced Tuesday. The 1-cent piece, a 1909 “VDB” penny, was attached to a smartphone-size plaque on the Mars rover Curiosity to help calibrate one of its five science cameras. The plaque, which resembles an eye chart, will be used for the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, to help with three-dimensional calibration utilizing known surface shapes. Project managers also hope it will also offer a penny for the public’s thoughts… about Mars.
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