Curiosity Rover is Graffiti Artist, Tagging Mars in Morse Code [VIDEO]

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You probably know a lot about the Mars Curiosity rover currently exploring the Red Planet. It's beaming back photos and videos at an impressive rate, and its flight director has an epic mohawk.

But here's something you may not know -- Curiosity, like an excited teenager visiting a new part of town, is tagging the Martian landscape with the initials of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in morse code everywhere it goes.

How? gaps in Curiosity's wheels leave this pattern of lines with each revolution:

short long long long

short long long short

short long short short

That translates to JPL, for Jet Propulsion Lab. Graffiti on Mars, in other words, albeit very nerdy graffiti.

But the tag isn't just NASA marking its territory for any other extraterrestrial beings who might come across Curiosity's tracks -- engineers say it also serves a purpose. With the absence of other landmarks to judge distance on Mars, the markings will help them track the distance traveled by Curiosity and calibrate spatial relationships.

Curiosity's first spin around its new surroundings happened earlier this week, when it traveled about 15 feet forward then eight feet back. One small step for a rover, one giant leap for robotkind. But Curiosity is soon to venture farther afield, to an area of scientific interest about 400 yards away from its current resting spot.