It didn’t take long at all. The Perseverance Rover, which has been on Mars for around a fortnight, is now collecting mysterious strange objects in the Jezero crater with its panoramic unit. And if certain people have rational explanations, pareidolia hasn’t stopped people from seeing fragments of flying saucers, skeletons, and other strange objects… or has it?
Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera was used in a stunning high-resolution panorama released by NASA earlier this week, joined by engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The photograph has a lot of depth to it. It allows you to get an unrivaled view of the surrounding Jezero Crater, which was once thought to be a dry river delta on Mars.
Rock of the harbor seal:
Scientists have discovered a rare outcrop among the infinite rocks. In the rocky terrain, a very tall black stone stands out. The team has already called it “Harbor Seal Rock” because of its resemblance to the marine mammal, according to Mastcam-Z Chief Investigator Jim Bell.
Eons of strong winds waving the crater may have sculpted the soil.
“Skulls,” “bright things,” and other eerie phenomena
This first shot, like many others taken by various rovers and satellites, lacks any distinguishable aspect that can provide perspective and scale to the image:
Like some netizens put it, this frees the imagination to see these objects as massive ant hills. Overall, there seems to be a hill at the bottom. Most people, however, agree that they are just rocks, despite the fact that referring to Martian rocks as “just rocks” sounds sacrilegious.
The following image necessitates less imagination and more pareidolia:
This strangely formed entity, magnified somewhat, reminds certain people of the “skull.” Are you human? Are you human? Who knows, maybe the wide-open mouth evokes the expression from Edvard Munch’s iconic drawing. Is it a miniature version of the Viking missions’ classic “Face on Mars”?
The sparkling objects on the hill, last but not least, are the best and funniest image in this first batch:
When the anomaly finders discovered that there were no remnants from the rest of the flight, both the sky crane and the part with the heat shield plunged even further, they concluded that they were most likely metallic spacecraft, either for extraterrestrials or long-running human flights to the red planet that were kept top-secret.
Zooming doesn’t improve, as seen in the video below (as someone who works from home and attends virtual meetings will attest).
The good news is that the objects haven’t been identified yet, so they’re open to interpretation by phenomenon hunters (or pareidolias). Even better, when Perseverance flies across the soil and finally rockets the plane, more footage would be available.
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