NASA’s Perseverance rover continues to delight Earthlings with unique images from the surface of the Red Planet. At the end of August, its cameras captured an unusual rock formation resembling a turtle sticking its head out from under its shell. This bizarre discovery quickly found fans among space enthusiasts around the world.
In August, NASA’s Perseverance rover photographed a rock on Mars that resembles a turtle peeking out of its shell. Photo: NASA
A highly detailed photograph of the “Martian turtle” was obtained using the SHERLOC instrument mounted on the rover’s robotic arm. This device, designed to search for signs of ancient life, in this case recorded something even more fantastic. However, this is far from the first time that Martian rocks have reminded us of familiar objects.
Earlier in August, another camera, Mastcam-Z, captured an image of a pointed rock resembling an ancient conquistador’s helmet. And in the autumn, the Mars rover discovered a formation with spherical intersperses, which was unofficially named “St. Paul’s Bay.” Scientists note that all these amazing shapes are the result of purely natural geological processes.
Photo of the rock by NASA’s Perseverance, on top of which a “turtle sits.” Photo: NASA
Erosion, wind exposure, and slow changes over millions of years have shaped the modern Martian landscape. Each such rock, regardless of what it looks like, is an important piece of the puzzle for scientists. Studying it helps to reconstruct the ecological history of the Jezero crater and determine whether conditions suitable for life once existed on Mars.
The process by which we see familiar images in abstract forms is called pareidolia. This is a psychological phenomenon where our brain automatically fills in reality by finding familiar patterns, faces, or figures in it. This is how we recognize animals in the shape of clouds or patterns in wood. Mars, with its desert landscapes, is the perfect playground for this mind game.
The Perseverance mission has been going on for more than three Earth years, and during that time, the rover has traveled more than 37 km. The “turtle” was spotted on the 1610th Martian day (sol) of the mission, proving once again that even in uninhabited worlds, we seek and find something familiar and understandable.
Earlier, we reported on how Perseverance spotted a rock on Mars shaped like a sleeping cat.
According to chron.com