The planet Mars still hides many mysteries, and the images taken by devices sent there never cease to amaze. The Curiosity rover thus published a photo, Saturday, May 7, on which is visible a rectangular opening in a wall, resembling a door.
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Some alien hunters have seen it as an access made by an intelligent life form, which would live secretly on Mars or would have lived there a long time ago. But the reality seems much less thrilling. “Sorry, NASA didn’t find a secret door on Mars”writes the specialized American site CNet (in English). The magazine Sky & Space speculates that this could be a sign of landslides occurring after fractures in the rock. To support his hypothesis, the bimonthly published a photo showing the area in question more broadly.
Of course it is (probably) not an alien door, but landslides following fractures in the rock! On this broad plan, we can also distinguish many pic.twitter.com/j6ixPi4nJ3
– Sky & Space (@cieletespace) May 11, 2022
“It’s not a ‘real’ door, but a break in the sediments of the area, which is very varied”wrote on Twitter freelance journalist Eric Bottlaender, specialist in space issues.
This is not the first time that an image taken by Curiosity has fueled the imagination. In 2015, some saw a flying spoon on the red planet. It is actually a ventifact, a rock formed, polished and shaped by erosion, explained NASA. Previously, some had thought they saw a lizard or even a sandal in pictures taken by the rover. These misunderstandings, these erroneous interpretations, are what scientists call “pareidolia”, which result from the brain’s ability to perceive familiar shapes in any object, such as animals in the clouds or the face of Jesus on a toast. .