NASA Mars Rover finds a mysterious rock, internet baffled; check why

The NASA Mars Rover has been making some interesting discoveries lately. Just a couple of days ago, it found what appeared to be space spaghetti. And now, it has done something special. It has taken a detour from its pre-assigned path and found a mysterious rock. While on the surface of it, the boulder might not look much different from thousands of others seen on Earth or Mars, it has mystified the netizens. Why? Because everyone is finding different shapes in the boulder, making it a confusing Martian rock. Read on to find out what this boulder is all about.

The image was taken on July 13 and was later posted by NASA. According to the description, it appears that the image was taken by the Left Navigation Camera onboard the Mars Rover. Unlike other boulders, this one looked different. It had a flat bottom, a rhomboid midsection and a triangular top which almost looked like a hat. The boulder was so interesting that even the Mars Rover could not stop itself from taking a detour to take pictures of it. But the real chaos began once it was posted on social media websites and netizens joined in the conversation.

NASA Mars Rover finds a strange boulder, confuses netizens

On a thread where space writer Jason Major posted a composite image of the boulder, a Twitter user commented, “Admittedly I've a tendency to see figures and faces in ambiguous input .. but does anyone else kinda see an Old Europe style Venus figurine in that Mars rock”?

But the comparisons didn’t just stop there. Another user said, “That's a statue. You can clearly see the facial features, arms hands, fingers. Come on nasa quit playing with us”. The comparisons kept getting more obscure as one user called it “a tortoise with a sombrero” and another found it similar to “brontosaurus poop”.

But why is the NASA Mars Rover taking such weird pictures? It turns out there is a strategic reason behind investigating this strange looking rock. Lauren Edgar, UGCS planetary geologist posted on Mars Rover mission website and said, “Boulders like the large one shown in the above Navcam image (now named “Ilha Novo Destino”) can help inform our understanding of the upcoming stratigraphy, so we thought it was worth a trip to this “new island destination” for the weekend”.