Here’s What Happens When NASA Engineers Carve Their Pumpkins

Every workplace should have this much fun! A group of engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory held their sixth annual pumpkin carving contest, and this year’s entries did not disappoint. Using a combination of engineering savvy and creative license, the JPL engineers carved up several different types of themed pumpkins, including a cow abduction by aliens, a geyser-spewing Europa, unique depictions of several different space missions and much more.

Halloween is actually a special holiday at JPL because October 31, 1936 was the beginning of JPL’s history, when several grad students studying at Caltech and some amateur rocket enthusiasts drove out to a dry canyon tested out a liquid rocket engine. To celebrate JPL’s 80th anniversiary, here’s a link to a gallery of images pairs that shows vintage views from JPL’s history with images that show what the lab looks like today.

In addition, JPL held a Halloween costume contest that really was out of this world. See all the fun below:

This pumpkin was turned into a spooky alien abduction scene:

A pale pumpkin Europa, complete with geysers. Behind it, Juno orbits Jupiter.

Wheee! A Halloween carnival:

JPL’s Starshade was turned into a chainsaw massacre.

The pictures of the costume contest are courtesy JPL mechanical engineer Aaron Yazzie’s Twitter feed: