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		</div><p>The huge parachute used by Nasa’s Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle lover on the spacecraft team.</p>
<p>Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out “Dare Mighty Things” in the orange and white strips of the 70ft parachute.</p>
<p>He also included the GPS co-ordinates for the mission’s headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.</p>
<p>Mr Clark, a crossword fan, came up with the idea two years ago.</p>
<p>Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was “super fun,” he said.</p>
<p>Only about six people knew about the encoded message before Thursday’s landing, according to Mr Clark. They waited until the parachute images came back before putting out a teaser during a televised news conference on Monday.</p>
<p>It took just a few hours for space fans to figure it out, Mr Clark said. Next time, he noted: “I’ll have to be a little bit more creative.”</p>
<p>“Dare Mighty Things” — a line from Us president Theodore Roosevelt — is a mantra at JPL and adorns many of the centre’s walls.</p>
<p>The trick was “trying to come up with a way of encoding it but not making it too obvious”, Mr Clark said.</p>
<p>As for the GPS co-ordinates, the spot is 10ft from the entrance to JPL’s visitor centre.</p>
<p>Another added touch not widely known until touchdown: Perseverance bears a plaque depicting all five of Nasa’s Mars rovers in increasing size over the years.</p>
<p>Deputy project manager Matt Wallace promises more so-called hidden Easter eggs. They should be visible once Perseverance’s 7ft arm is deployed in a few days and starts photographing under the vehicle, and again when the rover is driving in a couple weeks.</p>
<p>“Definitely, definitely, you should keep a good lookout,” he urged.</p>
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