\nDozens of polygon-covered rocks that look like chunks of fossilized “scales” from giant reptiles surround the surface of Mars near Antofagasta in Gale Crater. |Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS\/Kevin M. Gill<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
section of Mars<\/u> New photos reveal that it is covered in a surprising number of features, including chunks of fossilized giant reptile scales. But don’t worry. This strange structure was not created by giant aliens. Rather, it may have something to do with ancient water.<\/p>\n
NASA’s Curiosity spacecraft snapped a photo of a strange rock while en route to Antofagasta. Antofagasta is a relatively young, 33-foot (10-meter) wide impact crater located on the slopes of Mount Sharp (also known as Mount Aeolis) within the larger Gale Crater near the Martian equator.<\/p>\n
A pair of black and white photographs depicting \u201cscales\u201d are released by NASA<\/u> A close-up color image of the rock was taken on April 14th. share online<\/u> by the next day Kevin M. Gill<\/u>a software and spaceflight engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), specializing in image processing. (The photos were taken on April 7 and April 13, respectively, and are also known as Sol 4859 and Sol 4865 on Mars time.)<\/p>\n
The unusual shapes and dense assemblages of these rocks Comparison with reptile scales<\/u> like crocodile<\/u>some commenters joked that the formation looked like a dragon.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear how many scaly rocks were photographed or how large they were, but reports on April 10 said they stretched “many meters” across the ground. NASA blog post<\/u>.<\/p>\n\n\nAs Curiosity headed toward Antofagasta, it snapped several photos of scaly rocks that stretched “for many meters.” |Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The researchers weren’t shocked to see these multifaceted rocks, or “polygons,” but they were surprised by the sheer abundance of them in the area.<\/p>\n
“Many of the rocks we drove over have incredible textures, with thousands of honeycomb-like polygons across the surface.” Abigail Fraiman<\/u>JPL planetary scientists wrote in a blog post. “We’ve seen rocks with polygonal patterns like this before, but never in such dramatic abundance.”<\/p>\n
Polygons with similar honeycomb shapes have been seen before on both sides of Mars. small<\/u> and bigger<\/u> Scales. In these past examples, the shape was often related to the drying of wet mud or ice crystals moving beneath the Martian surface. But it’s too early for scientists to know exactly how the latest shape formed.<\/p>\n
Curiosity collected “a lot of image and chemical data that helps distinguish between different hypotheses about how the honeycomb structure formed,” Freman said.<\/p>\n
animal scammer<\/h2>\n Curiosity spent the better part of a year before arriving in Antofagasta Study a series of rock ridges<\/u> At Mount Sharp, it’s called “boxwork.” These characteristics also Known as Mars’ “spider web”<\/u> Because of the zigzag movement on the ground and the robots that have been wandering around lately. small egg-like spheroids with spots<\/u> stuck to their side. (Do not confuse “web” with the infamous “Martian spider.” dark arachnid features<\/u> It is scattered on the surface of the planet. )<\/p>\n\n\nCuriosity and other rovers on or around Mars have monitored dozens of animal deceivers on Mars’ surface, including “Martian spiders” (top left), coral-like rocks (top right), Martian turtles (bottom left), and egg-like spheroids (bottom right). |Credit: Top left: ESA\/DLR\/FU Berlin. Top right: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS. Bottom left: NASA\/JPL-California Institute of Technology. Bottom right: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Since landing on Mars in 2012, the rover has also photographed a series of other objects, including some surprisingly realistic objects, such as suspicious animals. coral-like rock formations<\/u>.<\/p>\n
Related articles<\/p>\n
NASA’s other Mars rover, Perseverance, has also seen its fair share of pseudo-life since landing in 2021. A statue-like “turtle” that pokes its head out of its shell.<\/u>. And a fleet of spacecraft orbiting Mars is monitoring other anomalous entities, including: “Butterfly” Crater<\/u> and Martian “dog”<\/u> It is buried beneath the planet’s north pole.<\/p>\n
Most of these animal connections are the result of a phenomenon known as. pareidolia<\/u>This is when the human brain sees or hears something important in random images or patterns.<\/p>\n
March quiz<\/strong><\/u>: Is your knowledge of the Red Planet out of this world?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n#NASAs #Curiosity #spacecraft #discovers #surprising #number #giant #dragon #scales #scattered #Mars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Dozens of polygon-covered rocks that look like chunks of fossilized “scales” from giant reptiles surround the surface of Mars near Antofagasta in Gale Crater. |Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS\/Kevin M. Gill section of Mars New photos reveal that it is covered … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2349,2355,2253,2352,1093,2255,2350,557,1615,2353,2354,1143,704,2254,2351,2256,2257,582,2199],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-antofagasta","tag-balance","tag-curiosity","tag-curiosity-probe","tag-discovers","tag-dragon","tag-gale-crater","tag-giant","tag-mars","tag-mars-rover","tag-mount-sharp","tag-nasa","tag-nasas","tag-number","tag-reptile-scales","tag-scales","tag-scattered","tag-spacecraft","tag-surprising"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}