NewsMars: "Buried Skeletons" to be seen on NASA image?

Mars: "Buried Skeletons" to be seen on NASA image?

The NASA rover “Perseverance” sends a photo from Mars to Earth. A viewer can see things on it that shouldn’t actually exist on the red planet.

Pasadena – The planet Mars is currently inaccessible to humans – maybe that’s why it is inspiring for many and stimulates the imagination. What people interpret into the red planet can be observed again and again when new images of the NASA rovers “Curiosity” or “Perseverance” are published. Sometimes there is talk of a “strange building” on Mars, sometimes people who have looked at a picture of Mars wonder whether a rainbow can be seen on it.

One thing is certain: there are no limits to the imagination when it comes to pictures of the red planet, as shown by a picture that the US space agency NASA published as the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” in August 2021. The picture reminds him of “partially buried skeletons”, writes the Twitter user @nickstew_art and continues: “It is the way in which the surface was stripped by the wind to expose the rock layers below. It really is a cemetery planet. “

Nasa rover sends a strange image of Mars: are skeletons visible on it?

According to NASA, the image was taken by the Mars rover “Perseverance” on its 180th Mars day (August 22, 2021). A large stone can be seen in the center of the picture, which the researchers nicknamed “Rochette”. The plan is for the rover to examine the stone with its two-meter-long robotic arm. If it has the right consistency, a rock sample will be taken, it was said in August.

That actually happened in September: the rover “Perseverance” drilled two holes in the stone and sent several selfies back to earth with the stone “Rochette”. The rock samples should also arrive on earth at some point. It is currently planned that a future Mars mission will transport the soil samples that the “Perseverance” rover collects and prepares back to Earth.

Nasa rovers photograph things on Mars that don’t even exist there

NASA’s rovers repeatedly take photos of things on Mars that shouldn’t actually exist on the red planet – and also don’t exist. In fact, the human brain likes to play tricks on looking at images from Mars. A “woman figure” has already been discovered in the rock of Mars, a “floating spoon” or a “pyramid”.

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The phenomenon that comes into play here is called pareidolia and ensures that people believe they recognize known things in the unknown: for example, a dancing woman on the strange planet Mars. The phenomenon, a kind of “auto-completion” in the brain, also occurs on earth – for example when you see a face on the moon or recognize earthly things in cloud formations.

Photo suggests bones found on Mars – Nasa explains what can really be seen on

A photo of Mars is particularly persistent and is passed around on the Internet again and again: The picture allegedly shows a “human bone” on Mars. As NASA explained at the time, the picture was taken in 2014 and was taken by the “Curiosity” rover. “This Mars stone could look like a thigh bone, but team members believe that the shape was created by erosion – either from wind or water,” says NASA. The red planet was probably never able to support organisms more complex than microbes, which is why large fossils are unlikely.

Auf diesem Mars-Bild aus dem Jahr 2014 ist kein menschlicher Knochen zu sehen, versichert die Nasa. Erosion (durch Wind oder Wasser) habe den Stein in diese Form gebracht.

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Nasa assures us that there are no human bones to be seen in this image of Mars from 2014. Erosion (by wind or water) brought the stone into this shape.

In fact, the NASA rovers “Curiosity” and “Perseverance” are on Mars to find out whether the red planet once harbored life and whether there are still traces of it today. “Perseverance” recently caused a sensation with a very special Mars discovery. (tab)

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