NASA's Indian American Scientist Swati Mohan's bindi goes viral as Perseverance rover has successful touchdown

The landing of NASA's Perseverance rover on the Red Planet is the best news the people of India woke up to this morning. The credit for the successful landing of the rover goes to Indian-American scientist Dr Swati Mohan, who deftly guided, navigated, and controlled the operations of the Mars 2020 mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena beamed with happiness when Dr. Swati Mohan confirmed the news of the touchdown. A small video of the moment was released by NASA where Dr. Swati Mohan is seen wearing a bindi on her forehead. Her small bindi has created a frenzy among the netizens. People flocked to social media platforms to show their support and pride for their culture. 

While some people shared that they were previously bullied for wearing a bindi, they thanked her for embracing her culture as she aced at her work front. The scientist’s desi bindi is garnering a lot of attention on social media as her picture and video of wearing a bindi in the control room went viral. 

Some encouraging tweets are as follows:

Dr. Mohan moved to the US just after she was born and has been raised in Northern Virginia and Washington DC metro area. She completed her education from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and did MS and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics/Astronautics stream.

Talking about her team's importance in this crucial mission, she said that during the cruise phase as it headed towards Mars, their work was to figure out how the spacecraft is oriented and ensure that it is pointed correctly in space.