By CoinWeek ….
If you’ve ever been fascinated by the fact that coins have traveled in space and that some have permanently left the Earth to reside in the outer reaches of the Solar System, then this video is for you:
Mars Guy is Dr. Steve Ruff, an Associate Research Professor at Arizona State University who specializes in Martian geology and has a wealth of experience with the scientific exploration of Mars. Collaborating with the NASA Infiniscope project, his YouTube channel is dedicated to the Perseverance rover (and Ingenuity helicopter) mission exploring Jezero crater. Among space-themed YouTubers, Dr. Ruff’s content is fairly unique. He has a knack for presenting technical knowledge to a popular audience in understandable bite-sized amounts, and his use of himself for scale in his videos is one of those good ideas that seems so obvious in retrospect that you wonder why no one else does it.
On Sunday, January 19, Mars Guy released a video about the Philadelphia Mint 1909 V.D.B. Lincoln Wheat penny being used as a camera calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) (geologists having used coins in this manner in the past) on the Curiosity rover in Gale crater. Imager Principal Investigator Kenneth Edgett chose the 1909 V.D.B. as the calibration target because the famous coin was struck 100 years before the rover’s original launch date of 2009. Its launch was ultimately delayed until 2011, with the rover touching down on Martian soil in August 2012.
The first image of the Lincoln Wheat Cent was captured on September 9, 2012, with some dust already on the coin from the landing’s blowback. Over the subsequent decade, “Honest Abe” has endured freezing temperatures and numerous cycles of dust coverage and cleaning – including a corrosive global dust storm that killed the solar-powered Opportunity rover.
This video provides a one-of-a-kind visual history of Mars’ effects on the 1909 penny, and it would be interesting to hear a professional grader’s take on the state of the coin. Perhaps grading companies can use this and footage like it that will no doubt exist soon to develop standards for future “environmental damage” certification of coins on other planets.
For now, if you’re anything like us, you’ll go for the numismatics but stay for the areology.
Cheers!
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