- Writing
- BBC News World
24 minutes ago
Photo credit, NASA/JPL
With a striking rectangular shape, and a smooth cut that contrasts with the rough rock that surrounds it, a geological formation on Mars has been raising questions for several days.
Some have found it to be shaped like a “door” and others have theorized that an alien civilization may have created a “passage” to the nearby planet.
To read especially on BBC Africa:
But what the photo taken by the Curiosity rover, which has been sending information back from the ground since 2012, shows has a more logical explanation.
According to NASA, it’s a matter of perspective.
The origin and its explanation
On May 7, the US space agency released another photo of Martian terrain taken by the Curiosity rover’s Mast camera.
NASA identified the image as part of the “Sol 3466” series that was posted as multiple images on the Mars Exploration Program website.
Photo credit, NASA/JPL
Since the publication, some people on the Internet have started theorizing about its shape and appearance as a “door” or “passage”.
But this particular image is just one in a series that, when viewed in its complete composition, changes the perspective of its size and shape.
“It’s a very, very, very, very zoomed shot of a small crack in a rock,” NASA tells BBC Mundo.
In the image below, you can see the composition that makes up the entire 3466 image series and the size of the crack in this rock from the Jezero crater, which has been explored by the Curiosity rover in recent weeks.
Photo credit, NASA/JPL/Neville Thompson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists pointed to the small size of the crack, about 30cm wide by 45cm long.
“There are line fractures throughout this outcrop, and this is a place where several line fractures intersect,” NASA explains.
A “curious” fracture
Several experts have spoken on this subject in recent days.
Neil Hodgson, a British geologist who has studied Martian landforms, says that while this image is “curious”, it is not mysterious.
“In short, it feels like natural erosion to me,” he told Live Science.
The strata, the layers of rock that you see in images like this, are beds of silt and sand.
“They were deposited about 4 billion years ago in sedimentary conditions, possibly in a river or on a windblown dune,” Hodgson said.
Fractures in the ground can form such cracks naturally. In this case, a vertical fracture intersects strata or layers to form such cuts.
