{"id":601989,"date":"2026-04-23T17:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/601989\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:24:08","slug":"nasas-perseverance-sees-rock-resembling-prehistoric-animal-skull-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/601989\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA&#8217;s Perseverance sees rock resembling prehistoric animal skull on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dinosaurs may have ruled the Earth, but did they roam on Mars?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/19\/science\/nasa-discovers-rock-on-mars-that-shouldnt-be-there\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover<\/a> has spotted a rock so intriguing that the public has voted it \u201cImage of the Week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A bizarre picture taken by the exploratory robot on the Red Planet appears to show a rock with a remarkable resemblance to a dinosaur skull.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/03\/05\/perseverance-rover-takes-first-drive-on-mars\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perseverance spotted the rock<\/a> on April 18 and stopped to snap a photograph.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover has spotted a rock so intriguing that the public has voted it \u201cImage of the Week.\u201d NASA\/JPL-Caltech \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>A bizarre picture taken by the exploratory robot on the Red Planet appears to show a rock with a remarkable resemblance to a dinosaur skull. NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>Other examples on the Red Planet have included rocks that have been remarked to look like a turtle, a helmet, a zebra, and a skull. NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>The Perseverance rover on Mars. NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>An image of Mars from space. ESA\/MPS et al. \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>It was exploring Jezero Crater, a roughly 45 km\u2011wide ancient impact crater that once held a lake fed by a river delta, making it a prime site for searching for signs of past microbial life.<\/p>\n<p>The human tendency to see familiar shapes in random patterns is known as pareidolia.<\/p>\n<p>Other examples on the Red Planet have included rocks that have been remarked to look like a turtle, a helmet, a zebra, and a skull.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dinosaurs may have ruled the Earth, but did they roam on Mars? NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover has spotted a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[37129,196,718,79,193,13059],"class_list":{"0":"post-601989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-dinosaurs","9":"tag-mars","10":"tag-nasa","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-space-program"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}