Written by Amira Shehata
Friday, April 14, 2023 10:00 PM
NASA’s Curiosity rover captured a picture of a strange Martian structure that one expert described as the “most bizarre” ever. The images taken by the car-sized robot appear to show the shape of spikes protruding from a dumped rock, at the base of the 96-mile (154 km) Gale Crater region. sleeve), which resemble bones.
According to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, the pictures were taken using the Curiosity camera and ChemCam on the day of Mars 3786, and sparked online speculation about what it might have imagined, as some compared the structure to a fish bone or a branch of a spruce tree, and said that it would be difficult to It’s a natural rock formation here on Earth.
Curiosity has been roving around since August 2012 as part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, and the Gale region is believed to be an ancient, dried-up lake between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years old.
The probe’s mission goals include investigating the climate and geology of Mars, preparing for human exploration, and it is also constantly sending back pictures of strange things it encounters, such as this rock formation.
Astrobiologist Natalie A. Cabrol shared an image on Twitter, commenting that “in 20 years of studying Mars, this was the most bizarre rock I’ve ever seen,” adding, “I can’t wait to get a microscope of this image.”
Another user commented: “Really weird, I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’ve been looking at pictures of Mars since the Sojourner mission in 1997.”
Some suggest that Martian winds may have eroded rocks over a long period of time.
Twitter user @Dottysaccount said: “On Earth, it might be a fossil plant like a spruce branch or a fish spine, it’s hard to be a natural rock formation.”