NASA’s Rover Discovers an Animal on Mars That Shouldn’t Be There

NASA’s Perseverance rover is looking for signs of life on Mars. Now discover a mysterious “beast”. What is behind it?

WASHINGTON, DC – Two NASA rovers are currently rolling over the Red Planet and not only discovering scientifically important things there, like water on Mars or the history of the Jezero Crater landing site. From time to time, images taken by the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers also include images of things that shouldn’t actually exist on Mars. The persistent rover, which has been traveling over the Red Planet for nearly a year, recently sent back images of “partially buried skeletons” on the surface of Mars.

Viewers at least got to know the skeletons in the picture. “It’s how the winds stripped the surface to reveal the layers of rock below. It really is a graveyard planet,” one user wrote on Twitter. In fact, the image showed rocks that the probe examined and later dug up to sample the rocks.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Photographs “Frog” on Mars

The image taken by the US spacecraft “Perseverance” in September 2021 is not quite as frightening as the image of “partially buried skeletons”. Image provided by NASA in October 2021 Posted as ‘Picture of the Week’., appears to show a frog floating in the red surface of Mars.

Finding a frog on Mars, the planet on which life has sought for many years – it would be a huge sensation. In fact, the supposed frog is a rock formation resembling the shape of a frog. The image was taken by the left Mastcam-Z on the “head” of the rover.

NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rover is searching for life on Mars

But why are things being discovered on Mars that couldn’t actually exist there? This is due to a phenomenon called pareidolia, a type of “self-completion” in the brain that allows people to recognize familiar things in unfamiliar ones. There were already images of Mars in which a “floating spoon”, a “female figure” or a “pyramid” was discovered – and this is where Paredolia struck. But this phenomenon is not limited to Mars, there are also typical cases on Earth in which hallucinations occur: for example, when one believes that terrestrial objects can be seen in cloud formations or a face at a full moon.

Even if the “frog” discovered by NASA’s “persevere” rover isn’t an indication of life on Mars: in fact, the two NASA rover actives are on the Red Planet to find evidence of past or present life there. So far, this has not been successful, but researchers have high hopes for a future mission to Mars: in the future, it will return rock and soil samples to Earth from the Red Planet, where researchers can then examine them in detail. The “perseverance” rover is currently laying the groundwork for this: it takes samples from Mars and packages them in such a way that a future mission can send them back to Earth. There, researchers eagerly await samples from a “treasure chest” that provides clues to Mars’ past. (tab)