NASA rover spots bizarre ‘turtle’ hiding among ancient rocks on Mars
The perseverance of the NASA rover took an intriguing photo of an “turtle” appearing to take out the head of its shell on the surface of March. The reptile type structure is the last of a long list of Martian rocks that resemble living creatures or other terrestrial objects.
Perseverance has captured the new image On August 31, on what was its 1,610th Sol, or Martian day, on the red planet. The robot the size of a wandering car broke the shot somewhere in the Jezero crater – a depression of 28 miles wide (45 kilometers) where the rover landed in 2021, which would have already contained a large lake.
The photo was taken using the habitable roots of the Rover with Ruman with Raman and the luminescence for organic products and chemicals (sherloc) and the wide angle topographic sensor for operations and engineering instruments (Watson), which combined to scan the rock in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths of light, according to the Live Science sister site Space.com. The two instruments are mounted on the rover robotic arm turret.
The star rock has collected comparisons with a tortoiseThanks to a head with two eyes that seem to be protruding from a protective “shell” with a pair of “front legs” on each side (see the image below).
We do not currently know what geological processes have shaped rock in this unusual form.
In relation: 32 things on Mars that seem not to be there
Mars Rovers collectively captured tens of thousands of photos of the surface of Mars, most of which have several different rocks or other geological characteristics that have been sculpted in unique forms by old water sources or millennials of strong winds. From time to time, one of these rocks looks like something we can see on earth, as blueberry,, Human fingerprintsA Mysterious door And even A symbol “Star Trek”To name only a few.
These associations are often made due to pareidolia – A psychological phenomenon where the human mind perceives a familiar model, like a face or an image, in objects or random structures, such as clouds.
Perseverance was particularly good to identify these strange rocks during its five -year mission. His other recent discoveries include a “Medieval bizarre” that he passed in August and a “Skull” out of place which is broken in April.
The Martian turtle is not the only “animal” to be spotted on the red planet. In recent years, orbit spacecrafts in March have also identified greater geological characteristics with zoological appearance, including one Dog -shaped blob under the north pole of the planetA Smiling the teddy bear in the shape of a cartoon and seasonal Swarms of “spiders” crawling on the Martian surface.
