NASA rovers Curiosity and Perseverance have photographed some fairly unusual objects on the floor of Mars.
From human-like heads and femur-like bones, to ‘mushrooms’ and suspiciously geometric structures, these objects are typically finally decided to be one thing Mars has in abundance. Yep, you bought it – rocks.
In a picture snapped by Curiosity in 2023, and newly doing the is-there-life-on-Mars rounds, nevertheless, the reason is a little extra uncommon.
On the far left of an in any other case regular image of a Martian panorama is a unusual darkish shadow that appears a little just like the silhouette of a jellyfish with tentacles dangling down – or, extra appropriately, a Martian Tripod straight out of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
Obviously, this characteristic isn’t as straightforward to clarify away as a rock – however, equally as clearly (or it ought to be), nor are there alien jellyfish drifting about within the ambiance of Mars.
Instead, the mysterious smudge is probably going much more cosmic in origin – a charged particle raining down from house and smacking into the silicon detector of Curiosity’s NavCam.
In reality, there’s a straightforward method to be pretty assured that no matter it’s we’re isn’t truly an ominous “jellyfish” perched on a Martian ridge.
Curiosity routinely takes a number of photos of a goal, and that is a good illustration of why.
The eerie jellyfish shot was taken on 20 August 2023 at 22:27:46 UTC. It additionally took images of the very same scene utilizing the very same instrument, 13 seconds and 25 seconds earlier.
Neither of the 2 earlier photos reveals even a trace of a negative-space jellyfish.
Nor is that this the primary time a unusual, fleeting smudge has appeared in considered one of Curiosity’s photos.
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that continually rain down from house. Here on Earth, we do not typically have to fret about them – our planet’s magnetic discipline deflects many, whereas people who get via are likely to smash into particles in our thick ambiance, producing showers of secondary particles excessive overhead.
Mars is not almost so effectively defended. It has no world magnetic discipline, and its ambiance has simply 0.5 p.c of the mass of Earth’s, leaving Curiosity comparatively uncovered to the energetic particles hammering down from house.
So it is truly common for cosmic-ray artifacts to indicate up in Curiosity photos. These charged particles routinely strike the detectors of cameras working past Earth’s protecting magnetic discipline and ambiance.
When they do, they’ll go away behind glitches within the ensuing photos.
For Curiosity’s photographs, these usually seem like vivid white patches, as if somebody has hit the digicam from afar with a tiny laser pointer, or bright white streaks and staticky speckles. They can take a few completely different types.
“In the thousands of images we’ve received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week,” imaging scientist and programs engineer Justin Maki of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in 2014.
But cosmic ray artifacts do not should be vivid white, as they’re often described. In a video recorded using Curiosity’s Hazcam in 2023, a “small black artifact” is famous as originating from a cosmic ray hanging the sensor.
These occasions are transient, often seen in simply a single body – precisely the form of conduct seen in Curiosity’s mysterious “jellyfish”.
That doesn’t suggest we are able to definitively blame a cosmic ray for this specific apparition. Without evaluation from the Curiosity imaging crew, different digicam or processing artifacts cannot be dominated out.
Related: Mysterious Structure on Mars Looks Uncannily Like an Ancient Egyptian Pyramid
But the photographs themselves make one factor fairly clear: Whatever produced the jellyfish was virtually actually occurring within the digicam, not lurking on the floor of Mars.
Mars would not want jellyfish, or severed heads, or bizarre pyramids to be attention-grabbing.
The motive we see these issues is attention-grabbing sufficient: We have robots exploring a whole different planet on our behalf – one whose geology throws up some bonkers rocks, and which leaves rovers sitting geese to be bopped on the pinnacle by particles which will have traveled half the cosmos to get there.
This article was fact-checked by Michael Irving and edited by Michael Irving. While we satisfaction ourselves on our course of, we’re solely human. If you notice a mistake, please let us know.