A strange looking rock has been pictured by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover which is searching for life on the red planet and it has left space fans wondering what it may be
A mysterious “helmet” has been spotted on Mars that has also been likened to a Harry Potter sorting hat.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover snapped the unusually shaped object on the Red Planet this month. Space fans voted the image as NASA’s Image of the Week and debated online about what it could be. The photo, selected by public vote, was taken on 5 August by the rover’s Left Mastcam-Z camera — one of a pair located high on the rover’s mast. The rock is wider at the bottom and narrows to a point at the top leading it to be described looking like a hat.
One online suggestion was that it resembles a medieval-looking helmet, while another referenced Harry Potter with the comment: “The Planet of the Sorting Hats has been found!”
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Other guesses included it looking like a “landed weather balloon” or “a relic from an ancient sea that was once on Mars”. Meanwhile, Facebook user Sid Niknezhad playfully suggested it was “Martian buffalo’s dung — nothing abnormal about it.”
The object is most likely a naturally formed rock shaped as the result of natural geological processes such as wind erosion, volcanic activity, and mineral precipitation from ancient groundwater. The rock is covered in small spherical mineral deposits called spherules.
Spherules form when the groundwater passes through pores in the sedimentary rocks although scientists are not sure that all are created this way.
The Mastcam-Z instrument, a pair of zoom-capable cameras on Perseverance’s neck-like mast, allows scientists to capture high-resolution images and spot unusual features like this spherule-covered “helmet” rock.
The Mars Perseverance rover has been sent to the planet for search for signs of ancient microbial life as part of NASA’s quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. “The rover is collecting core samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and soil), for potential pickup by a future mission that would bring them to Earth for detailed study,” states NASA.
Stargazers were struck by the fishy goings on, found by the robot which has been searching for life on Mars ever since arriving in February 2021. Since then, many strange-looking features appeared to have been spotted in the barren and arid landscape – including a doorway.
NASA themselves said one rock structure looked like a shark fin and a crab claw. It posted in August last year on X: “This rocky duo was spotted hanging out together in a wind-swept area. I spy a … crab claw? Shark fin? Comment below with what you see!”
The image showed a shark-fin-looking outcrop and a crab-claw-like boulder which are cases of pareidolia. This happens when the brain sees something and turns it into a seemingly meaningful image that doesn’t really exist. And the NASA post received quickly went viral with many replies with one person joking that there were remains of an “almighty great cosmic crab”.
Others also felt that the crab claw boulder looked more like a turtle, or even a coffee bean, while a further comment said that the “shark fin” more closely resembled the back of a stegosaurus.