NASA’s ‘perseverant’ rover discovers ‘animals’ on Mars that shouldn’t even be there

NASA’s “Persevering” rover is looking for traces of life on Mars. Now discover a mysterious “animal”. What is behind it?

WASHINGTON, DC – Two NASA rovers are currently roaming over the Red Planet and are not only discovering scientifically important objects like water on Mars or the history of the Jezero crater landing site. Every now and then, in the “Perseverance” and “Curiosity” rover recordings, there are also images of things that shouldn’t actually exist on Mars. Recently, the “Perseverance” rover, which has been traveling over the Red Planet for about a year, sent back images of “partly buried skeletons” on the surface of Mars to Earth.

At least the viewer knows the skeletons in the picture. “It’s how winds scraped the surface to reveal the layers of rock below. It’s really a graveyard planet,” one user wrote on Twitter. In fact, the image showed stones that the probe examined and later also dug up to sample the rocks.

NASA’s ‘Persevere’ rover photographed the ‘Frog’ on Mars

Not quite as scary as the picture of “partially buried skeletons” is a photo taken by the US spacecraft “Perseverance” in September 2021. Photo released by NASA in October 2021 Posted as “Picture of the Week”, appears to show a frog sitting in the middle of the red surface of Mars.

To find a frog on Mars, the planet that has been searching for life for so many years – that would be a huge sensation. In fact, the supposed frog is a stone formation resembling the shape of a frog. The image was taken from 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 learn about known things into the unknown. There were already images from Mars in which a “floating spoon”, a “female figure” or a “pyramid” was discovered – this is where pareidolia 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 he is recognizing terrestrial objects in cloud formations or suspects a face on the full moon.

Even if the “frog” discovered by NASA’s “Persevering” rover isn’t an indication of life on Mars: in fact, the two active NASA rovers are on the Red Planet to track down evidence of past or present life. This has not been successful so far, but the researchers are very hopeful for a future Mars mission: In the future, it will return rock and soil samples from the Red Planet to Earth, where researchers can then examine them in detail. The “perseverance” rover is currently laying the groundwork for this: it takes samples from Mars and packs them so that a future mission can send them back to Earth. Researchers there are eagerly awaiting samples from the “treasure chest” that provides clues about Mars’ past. (tab)