{"id":94580,"date":"2025-08-26T18:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T18:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94580\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T18:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T18:51:14","slug":"bizarre-helmet-spotted-on-mars-is-being-likened-to-the-sorting-hat-from-harry-potter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94580\/","title":{"rendered":"Bizarre ‘helmet’ spotted on Mars is being likened to the ‘sorting hat’ from Harry Potter"},"content":{"rendered":"

With its pointed peak and wide brim, it looks like nothing discovered on Mars<\/a> before.<\/p>\n

In fact, this Martian rock, newly spotted by NASA<\/a>‘s\u00a0Perseverance rover, is leaving people baffled with its hat-like appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bizarre feature, snapped on Mars’ ancient\u00a0Jezero Crater, is being likened to the ‘sorting hat’ from Harry Potter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On\u00a0Reddit<\/a>, it’s\u00a0also being compared with a helmet, a volcano, a\u00a0codpiece and\u00a0Marvin the Martian.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One commentator joked: ‘It\u2019s quite obviously the helmet of a Spanish conquistador.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

While another added: ‘Looks like part of a cup holder.’<\/p>\n

The curious feature is covered in little rocky blobs, which may reveal secrets about its formation \u2013 potentially billions of years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mars was once dotted with thousands of huge volcanoes which saw ‘super eruptions’<\/a>, according to NASA \u2013\u00a0the most powerful type of volcanic blast there is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The rock was snapped on August 5 by Perseverance using its Mastcam-Z instrument, the NASA rover’s primary science camera<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The image was shared to Reddit where it was likened to the ‘sorting hat’ from Harry Potter (pictured)<\/p>\n

While it may be reminiscent of the sorting hat, this effect may be due to a\u00a0psychological phenomenon known as ‘pareidolia’ \u2013\u00a0perceiving likenesses on random images.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As one Reddit user pointed out, the human mind is ‘great at seeing patterns’ which it recognizes from objects and phenomena down here on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘This rock pattern looks like a helmet when viewed from this very specific angle,’ they said, adding: ‘From any other angle it’s going to look like any old rock.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rock was snapped on August 5 by Perseverance using its Mastcam-Z instrument,\u00a0the NASA rover’s primary science camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was found at the Jezero Crater, a 28-mile impact basin on Mars that held liquid water billions of years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A closer look reveals it is covered from top to bottom with small bobbles, which are known by geologists as ‘spherules’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spherules, already found on the Red Planet, are roughly spherical pebbles, ranging 0.01mm to 4mm in diameter (up to 0.15 inches).\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Earth, spherules are formed by rapid cooling of molten rock droplets during a volcanic eruption, or by the condensation of rock vaporized by a meteorite impact.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A full scale test model of the Perseverance rover currently on Mars is displayed during a press conference for the Mars Sample Return mission in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on April 11, 2023<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Red Planet (pictured) is an average of 140 million miles (225 million km) away from Earth.\u00a0Jezero Crater is located on the western edge of a flat plain called Isidis Planitia, just north of the Martian equator<\/p>\n

But why the whole object has formed such an unusual hat-like shape is leaving people scratching their heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time strange spheres have been spotted on Mars, which is an average of 140 million miles (225 million km) away from Earth.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year,\u00a0A close-up image captured by Perseverance showed an alien-like mass comprised of hundreds of the millimeter-sized spheres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Matthew Chojnacki, a planetary geologist at the Planetary Science Institute, said they could be ‘frothy lava’ that rapidly cooled might lead to such a deposit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Joel Davis, planetary geologist at Imperial College London, said they may have been formed by water circulating through the Martian ground billions of years ago.<\/p>\n

‘[This was] potentially when conditions were too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface,’ Dr Davis told the Daily Mail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perseverance touched down on Mars’ Jezero Crater \u2013 believed to be the home of a lush lakebed and river delta billions of years ago \u2013 in February 2021 after a nearly seven-month journey through space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is tasked with seeking traces of fossilised microbial life from Mars’ ancient past and to collect rock specimens for return to Earth through future missions to the Red Planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MARS: THE BASICS<\/a><\/p>\n

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a ‘near-dead’ dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is one of the most explored planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent rovers to explore.<\/p>\n

One day on Mars takes a little over 24 hours and a year is 687 Earth days.<\/p>\n

Facts and Figures\u00a0<\/p>\n

Orbital period: 687 days<\/p>\n

Surface area: 55.91 million mi\u00b2<\/p>\n

Distance from Sun: 145 million miles<\/p>\n

Gravity: 3.721 m\/s\u00b2<\/p>\n

Radius: 2,106 miles<\/p>\n

Moons: Phobos, Deimos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With its pointed peak and wide brim, it looks like nothing discovered on Mars before. In fact, this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[97,125,59,1635,395,92,621,90,124,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-94580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-earth","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-harry-potter","12":"tag-mars","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-reddit","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-sciencetech","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}