Like jets of liquid that falls without origin or a kind of twisted ‘towers’ that rise above the Martian surface. This is the latest discovery of the Curiosity rover on Mars, a strange sedimentary formation that stands out in the Gale crater between boulders, according to researchers from the SETI institute (an institution whose mission is to explore, understand and explain the origin and nature of the life in the universe, and search for it beyond Earth), echoing an image taken by the NASA vehicle.
Despite the bizarreness of the landscape, these columns were most likely created from cement-like substances that once filled ancient cracks in the bedrock, as they explain.
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As the rocks eroded, these more compact ‘towers’ were revealed, ending up as the only witnesses of what that landscape once was.
As strange as the structures may seem, on Earth there are analogs called ‘fairy chimneys’, ‘earth pyramids’ or ‘hoodoo’ in English, a kind of tall and thin rock needles formed by erosion. These formations are typically found in dry environments, such as the canyons of Utah or southern Serbia, and the columns can sometimes reach the height of ten-story buildings.
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These ‘fairy chimneys’ are made up of layers of hard rock accumulating within softer sedimentary rock. As the rest of the rock erodes with rain, wind, or frost, a magnificent cast of an ancient fracture in the bedrock remains. The two much thinner and smaller towers of rock on Mars appear on the verge of collapsing compared to what we see on Earth, but they are clearly solid enough to withstand the lighter gravity experienced on the Red Planet.
rock flowers
Another strange rock formation found by Curiosity earlier this year could have been created in a similar way, albeit with very different results. This other, smaller rock looks like a piece of coral or a flower with numerous small petals that reach upwards, as if seeking the sun’s rays. “One theory is that the rock contains minerals deposited by water in cracks or splits on the earlier stones,” a NASA press release explained at the time. These concretions can be compacted together, can be harder and denser than the surrounding rock, and can remain even after the surrounding rock is eroded away.”
Gale Crater is not completely flat, but the alien towers discovered by Curiosity stand out in the landscape. And not only that, but they may offer clues to the past of the Red Planet, which is believed to be a shallow dry lake – less than NASA scientists first thought. Even so, and after a decade on Mars, Curiosity is still providing information about our neighbor, a world that we have set out to visit shortly but that still holds many secrets.
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