The cone-shaped object was photographed by a Mars rover in August 2022
Credit: NASA
NEED TO KNOW
- A cone-shaped item that was photographed by a Mars rover and called into question by a scientist has now been identified
- The oddly shaped object was photographed by NASA’s Curiosity rover in August 2022 in the Gale Crater, located near the Mars equator
- “We’ve seen many, many Martian rocks that exhibit shapes that, from a particular angle, look like a more familiar shape,” a NASA spokesperson said of the party hat-shaped object
A cone-shaped item that was photographed by a Mars rover and called into question by a scientist has now been identified by NASA.
The oddly shaped object — which was photographed by NASA's Curiosity rover in August 2022 in the Gale Crater, located near the Mars equator — was first called into question in a Medium post from astrophysicist Avi Loeb on March 8, when the Harvard scientist questioned if it was "human-made debris."
Speaking to the New York Post, a NASA spokesperson clarified that the metallic looking object seemed to just be a rock that had been shaped by Mars' high-speed winds — and the interpretation of its unusual party hat shape could be an example of the psychological phenomenon pareidolia, when humans see recognizable shapes in clouds, rock formations or otherwise unrelated objects.
"We've seen many, many Martian rocks that exhibit shapes that, from a particular angle, look like a more familiar shape," the NASA spokesperson told the Post, noting that the object was measured at around 1 cm and was photographed by the rover from 13 feet away.
Credit: NASA
Winds on Mars are thought of as a dominant force shaping landscapes, despite the planet's thin air, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The planet's winds have been thought to have been powerful enough to help move sand and form mountains, as well as other formations — including an oddly placed mountain that is in the middle of a crater.
However, astrophysicist Loeb pushed back against NASA's statement about the party hat-shaped rock, calling on the space agency to share a similar example of a cylindrical object that had been shaped by the wind.
“The image clearly shows that there is no rock resembling this anomalous object within its natural environment,” Loeb told the Post. "If this object is a rock, we should see other examples of it."
This isn't the first time that unusually shaped objects have been photographed on Mars' surface.
Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS / HANDOUT/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Last year, NASA scientists wrote about a newly photographed rock comprised of hundreds of strange millimeter-sized spheres, and several months prior, the Perseverance rover snapped some shots of "popcorn-like textures in sedimentary rocks exposed in the Jezero crater inlet channel."
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In 2022, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured an image of a hill on the planet that many believed to be shaped like a bear.
"A V-shaped collapse structure makes the nose, two craters form the eyes, and a circular fracture pattern shapes the head. The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater," NASA explained at the time.
The following year, Curiosity — which was the largest and most capable rover ever sent to Mars when it launched in 2011 — snapped a close-up view of a rock nicknamed "Terra Firme," which is said to look like the open pages of a book.
NASA did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for further information.
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