NASA engineers explicitly programmed the Curiosity rover to hum the Happy Birthday song to itself entirely alone on the freezing surface of Mars to celebrate its first year of operation.

A closer look

NASA engineers explicitly programmed the Curiosity rover to hum the Happy Birthday song to itself entirely alone on the freezing surface of Mars to celebrate its first year of operation. A multi-billion dollar piece of scientific equipment was forced to perform the most depressing solo party in the history of the universe millions of miles away from any organic life form capable of hearing it. They took the pinnacle of human aeronautical engineering and gave it just enough whimsy to make its desolate, dusty existence seem profoundly sad to the general public. We essentially anthropomorphized a nuclear-powered science laser just to emotionally manipulate ourselves into feeling sympathy for a bunch of wires and wheels aimlessly wandering a dead planet looking for rocks