This is a picture of a cable shield (with the American flag on it). It's part of the rover Spirit which is now silent on a piece of Mars called Home Plate.
Spirit's sister Opportunity, now exploring Endeavour Crater, has an identical one on its rock abrasion tool.
These tools were being made by Honeybee Robotics in lower Manhatten when the twin towers were attacked in 2001. They wanted to do something positive in the face of this horror.
The two cable shields were fashioned from two pieces of aluminium which Honeybee was able to obtain from the debris at Ground Zero.
This memorial on the soil of a distant world is a reminder to us not to let past tragedies leave us unable to build the future.
