a whole bunch of pictures from Mars, and among them, the rover revealed an eye-catching rock formation that looks eerily similar to a crashed spaceship. Out of all the planets in the Solar System, it's safe to say that Mars garners more attention than any of Earth's other neighbors. The alien world is fascinating for many reasons. It's relatively close to us, was likely similar to Earth at one time, and may have even had ancient life billions of years ago. The interest in Mars is so deep that NASA has plans to send the first humans there in the 2030s — with many folks dreaming of a day where people live on the Red Planet.
While it'll still be a while stunning Mars images widely available to the public.
In the 11 months it's been on Mars, Perseverance has shared a lot of these images. Over 191,000 pictures have been ed since last February, with almost 4,000 being shared in 2022 alone. Among its latest photo dump, Perseverance shared a photo that's particularly eye-catching. The picture above was taken with Perseverance's Right Mastcam-Z camera and acquired by NASA on January 10, 2022 (Sol 317) at 12:12. It reveals a gorgeous series of rocks littered across the sandy surface. The way they're positioned, it almost looks like the remains of a crashed spaceship! There are larger rocks towards the top of the hill, medium chunks below that, and much smaller ones nestled further down. While the rocks aren't really spaceship remains, it is pretty fascinating that's what they naturally look like.
Mars Rocks Can Look Like Almost Anything
Believe it or not, this isn't the first time Perseverance has seen something on Mars that looked like it didn't belong there. Back in October, the rover photographed another rock formation that bore a striking resemblance to a frog — featuring a head, body, and even frog-like legs. Curiosity also spotted something similar this past August, coming across a rock that looked just like a Martian worm. Mars doesn't actually have frogs, worms, or crashed spaceships. But what it does have are seemingly endless rocks of all shapes and sizes.
There are a lot of challenges humans will need to overcome when visiting or living on the Red Planet — ranging from food, water, oxygen, and a whole lot more. But when they do find a way to get there, they'll have plenty of Martian rocks waiting to be looked at. Including ones that mimic the remains of a crashed ship.
Source: NASA