NASA's carved pumpkins put everyone else's to shame

#NASApumpkin is Halloween goals.
 By 
Sasha Lekach
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

That jack-o'-lantern you worked on all weekend doesn't look like much compared to the feats of engineering these NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers put into their annual pumpkin carving contest.

This year's entrants brought it and there's video and photos to prove it.

Devoted NASA JPL mechanical engineer Aaron Yazzie was diligent in sharing inventive takes on the traditional Halloween decoration, much to our viewing pleasure.

First up, the NASASMAP pumpkin. (That's NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, for the uninitiated.)

Next up is a pumpkin holding real samples from Mars, glowing green and featuring a spacey take on the famous Forest Gump line.

Popular Netflix show Stranger Things made it into the competition.

Now the pumpkins get more intricate.

And now the engineers are just showing off.

This one went off-season and pulled out a barbecue -- and totally made it work.

Things got political during the competition with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pumpkins.

And then things got fun with Pac-Man.

Yazzie unofficially named his group's pumpkin the winner. You can judge for yourself.

You've got until Monday to attempt to make your pumpkin look half as good as all these.

BONUS VIDEO: These animals will get you in the Halloween spirit

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Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.

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