BECAUSE DUH: Why NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance will use nuclear power to keep itself warm. “Some NASA missions to Mars have run on solar energy, of course — the InSight lander currently operating on the Red Planet bears solar panels, as did the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers earlier this century. But Opportunity is a mascot for the weaknesses of solar energy at Mars, since the rover’s end came when a massive global dust storm blocked it from tapping into the sun’s light. Run a rover on nuclear power and you don’t have to worry about that scenario. So for the Perseverance rover, NASA turned to plutonium in a system called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), which should be able to power the spacecraft for about 14 years.”

Cheaper than an extension cord, too.