About

Perseverance Rover Landing Photograph refers to a photograph made by NASA's Mars rover Perseverance upon landing on the surface of the Mars in February 2021. Following the release of the photograph on Twitter, it was used as source material for memes, with users editing in various characters.

Origin

On February 18th, 2021, NASA's Mars rover Perseverance landed in the Jezero crater on Mars.^[1] On the same day, NASA released^[2][3] two black-and-white images of the Jezero crater taken by the rover (shown below, left and right). The tweet with the first image received over 214,000 retweets and 902,000 likes within 24 hours.

Spread

Starting on February 18th, 2021, users on Twitter and other social media posted edits of the first image taken by Perseverance, editing in various people and characters. Within six minutes of the first photograph being posted, Twitter^[4] user @nascarcasm edited in Bernie Sanders Sitting in a Chair, with the tweet gaining over 1,600 retweets and 16,300 likes in one day (edit shown below, left). Within eleven minutes of the NASA's tweet, Twitter^[5] user @cucchiaia posted a Robert Pattinson in a tracksuit meme that received over 250 retweets and 1,400 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Additionally, users posted video memes based on the image. For example, on February 19th, Twitter^[6] user @micha_bloss posted a Confused Travolta meme that gained over 300 retweets and 2,700 likes (shown below).

wrong zoom meeting pic.twitter.com/qwR7FUrOHc

— Michael Bloss (@micha_bloss) February 18, 2021

Following the news of the landing, NASA's Virtual Photo Booth, a virtual photo op launched by NASA in July 2020, saw a surge in popularity, with multiple users sharing images created with the app.^[7][8]

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References