NASA Technician Bobak Ferdowsi's Mohawk Turns New Champion On Twitterverse As Curiosity Makes Historic Landing On Mars

By Valli Meenakshi Ramanathan | August 07 2012 8:02 AM

Reports of NASA's Activity Lead Bobak Ferdowsi became one of the most trending topics across a host of social media sites including Twitter, Meme and Facebook Sunday, as millions watched Curiosity's successful landing at 10:31 pm PDT (early morning EDT) August 5 on Mars after the dangerous "seven minutes of terror."

Reuters

Bobak Ferdowsi's Mohawk became an instant sensation on the Social Media as millions watched the historic landing of NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity on the Red Planet.

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For the uninitiated, in the livestream and television coverage of the event trailing the rover's journey as well as Mission Control monitoring the landing, one image stood out from the crowd of tense scientists - that of Bobak Ferdowsi, The Huffington Post reported.

It was Ferdowsi's red and blue colored mohawk with yellow stars dyed on the sides that grabbed eyeballs instantly generating thousands memes and Twitter posts around Curiosity landing and NASA's mohawk guy.

Even a Tumblr account titled, "NASA Needs More Mohawks," was opened with the tagline, "Guides a rover through space and into my heart."

The Twitter following for Ferdowsi, which was less than 200 prior to Curiosity landing live telecast, shot up to over 16,000 followers soon after the broadcast, The Huffington Post added.

Surprised at the overwhelming response to his hairdo during the course of historic Mars landing, Bobak tweeted: "Internet, you win this round. I'll be back later, but thanks so much. Now going to celebrate with all my friends and Team! #msl"

Apparently, Ferdowsi sports a new hairdo for every mission and the current look signifying patriotic as well cosmic appeal won approval from his team members in Mission Control.