Mars findings cataloged in Navajo language

Native people have had ties to land in North America since time immemorial, and now that connection is expanding to the cosmos.

The Perseverance rover has been on Mars for a month, collecting data and making discoveries with each passing day.

A number of the findings, through a collaboration with NASA, have been catalogued in Diné Bizaad, the Navajo language.

The Perseverance team started with a list of 50 words and will expand the list as needed. According to a tweet from the rover itself, some terms have already been used, such as tsé łichíí (red rock), yéigo (diligence) and séítah (amongst the sand).

Before landing in the Jezero Crater on Máaz, Navajo for Mars, the Perseverance team divided the crater into a grid of “quadrangles” that were 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometers) in size and named the “quads” after national parks on Earth with similar geology.

The rover touched down in an area named after Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly National Monument, which is in the Navajo Nation.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, along with Vice President Myron Lizer and other advisers, came up with words from things they saw at the landing site, Indian Country Today reported.

A press release from NASA said suggestions included tséwózí bee hazhmeezh (rolling rows of pebbles, like waves). Aaron Yazzie, Diné, added suggestions like bidziil (strength) and hoł nilį́ (respect) to the list. “Perseverance” itself was translated to Ha’ahóni.

Yazzie is a mechanical engineer on the Perseverance team and works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

He hopes that seeing their Native language associated with the mission will make Native youth proud and encourage them to achieve their goals.

“This fateful landing on Mars has created a...