NASA recently surprised the public with their findings. The furore stems from NASA’s Curosity robot taking a feature photo lovecraftian on the surface of Mars last week. However, there are holes that appear rectangular and the shadows in the exposed rock appear as if they are pointing to the Martian underground.
The photo was taken on May 7 by Curiosity’s Mastcam robot while climbing Mount Sharp. Because of its idiosyncrasies, the grainy black-and-white photo has sparked conspiracy theories. Many thought the hole was like an alien entrance to the underground.
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Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist at the Mars Science Laboratory, said the hole was definitely not an entrance like in a video game. “It’s just the space between two faults in the rock,” Vasavada said as rumored Gizmodo.
Vasapada explained that the crack or hole was only about a foot high, and that once the sandbox had compacted, it was buried and opened as the sand on the Martian surface shifted.
During this process, the sandstone is under varying stresses causing it to bend and fracture in different places.
“The cracks (holes) that we see in this area are generally vertical,” he explained. Vasapada also explained that the door-shaped fracture is very likely to be formed in two ways.
“I think what we see here is either two vertical faults. The middle has been removed, or one vertical fault, and the beams have shifted a little bit,” Vasapada explained.
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The Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since landing in August 2012 at Gale Crater. The rover has covered 17.3 miles (27.84 kilometers) in 3,472 Martian days. When not collecting rock and soil samples, Curiosity takes photos with a panoramic Mastcam.
This photo from Curiosity is another example of your tendency to see familiar shapes in unfamiliar landscapes. In the past, many people thought they had seen all kinds of foreign objects on Mars, such as spoons and squirrels. (Rhine)
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