Working with the Navajo Nation, the rover team has named features on Mars with words from the Navajo language.

The first scientific focus of NASA's Perseverance rover is a rock named "Máaz"—the Navajo word for "Mars." The rover's team, in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President, has been naming features of scientific interest with words in the Navajo language.

Surface missions assign nicknames to landmarks to provide the mission's team members, which number in the thousands, a common way to refer to rocks, soils, and other geologic features of interest. Previous rover teams have named features after regions of geologic interest on Earth as well as people and places related to expeditions. Although the International Astronomical Union designates official names for planetary features, these informal names are used as reference points by the team.