NASA’s Perseverance rover spots ‘shark fin’ and ‘crab claw’ on Mars

• The new NASA image is the latest example of a phenomenon known as pareidolia.
• When the brain wants to make sense of what the eyes see, it creates something that is not real.

Looking at this new image of POTWith the Perseverance rover, you’d be forgiven for thinking something fishy on the Red Planet.

This is because the car-sized robot took an image of two separate rocks that resemble a shark fin and a crab claw.

The US space agency shared this latest discovery in X (formerly known as Twitter), prompting a wave of responses from space fans who joked that the crab-like rock was the remains of the ‘Great Almighty Cosmic Crab’.

Others said the “claw” looked more like a coffee bean or the head of a turtle “digging a hole for its eggs”, while some joked that the shark fin could actually be the “back plates”. of a stegosaurus.

The photos, which were taken last month, are the The latest example of a phenomenon known as pareidolia, in which the human brain wants to make sense of what the eyes see, creates meaning that isn’t real.

Most famously, it happened on Mars: in 1976, when NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft captured an image of what looked like a face carved into the surface of the Red Planet.

The US space agency made it clear when it released the image that it was an illusion caused by shadows, but that didn’t stop some from claiming the face was the work of an extraterrestrial species.

It wasn’t until 20 years later that NASA tried to put an end to this feverish speculation.

In 1998, the agency’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) captured images of the so-called ‘Face on Mars’ that were 10 times sharper than those from Viking 1, revealing it to be a much more natural-looking rock outcrop.

However, not everyone was convinced.

Some conspiracy theorists clung to the idea that the images had been obscured by haze, only for NASA to prove once and for all in 2001 that it was a common geological feature known as a hill or mesa, which also exists on Earth.

‘We photographed the Face as soon as we could get a good image of it,” said Jim Garvin, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program chief scientist.

‘It reminds me a lot of Middle Butte on the Snake River Plain in Idaho.

“It’s a lava dome that takes the shape of an isolated mesa about the same height as the face of Mars.”

However, this is just one example of the strange rocks that have been discovered on Mars.

Just this year the US space agency has shared images of a donut shaped rock and bone-like stonewhile Perseverance’s companion Curiosity on Mars captured a dark feature on a rock face that some claimed was a “door.”

That idea was soon dismissed by NASA, however, when the US space agency revealed it was only a few centimeters wide and tall, while geologists said it was likely caused by several coincident straight-line fractures in the wall of the Earth. rock.

Perseverance launched to Mars in 2020 to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.

He is currently exploring an ancient river delta inside Jezero crater, which was once filled with a 500-meter-deep lake.

Scientists believe the region hosted microbial life between 3.5 and 3.9 billion years ago, so the rover has been tasked with examining soil samples for evidence of extraterrestrial existence.