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NASA’s Perseverance rover recently captured an image of a donut-shaped rock on Mars that looks very out of place on the red planet.
According to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, the strange donut-shaped rock could be “a large meteorite alongside smaller pieces,” meaning that it did not originate on Mars, but came from somewhere else in space.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP
Many on the internet speculated as to what the donut-shaped rock is, how it got there, and what it means.
If it is a meteor, where is the crater?
— David (@Davenmichaels01) June 29, 2023
“A large meteorite fell without breaking or leaving so much as an imprint?” someone else asked. “Looks more like it was on its side and somehow tipped back against the rock behind it and cracked.”
Just say it!!! there is life on Mars.
— Onix Carmona (@inoxus) June 28, 2023
“Nonsense, it’s a giant nut from the fuselage of a planet-sized mothership,” another person joked.
who knocked over the guardian of forever? pic.twitter.com/yH59W6ryJ4
— ubernaut (@anachronofspace) June 28, 2023
This is far from the first time NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured an image of something odd on the surface of Mars.
In July of 2022, a mysterious spaghetti-like object spotted on Mars by the Perseverance rover vanished four days after it was first discovered.
The main theory for why the object vanished was that it simply blew away.
However, the fact that the atmosphere on Mars is so thin, about one percent of that on Earth, it would take some very strong wind to move an object even that tiny.
In June of 2022, some shiny material appeared in a photo taken by the rover. NASA later identified the object as part of a thermal blanket used to control temperatures. They believe that it must have gotten knocked loose when the rover landed on Mars in 2021 and somehow traveled the two kilometers on its own.
That same month, NASA’s Perseverance rover photographed a rock precariously balanced atop a boulder on Mars in an area known as “Hogwallow Flats” where rocks believed to be as old as 3.6 billion years are located.
No one could definitely state how the rock ended up where it did.
Perhaps when Elon Musk finally colonizes Mars someone up there can tell us exactly what all of these things are.
Assuming they don’t die horrible deaths (which Elon Musk almost guaranteed will happen) after using their own blood to create the buildings they were going to live in and eating those who passed before them, of course.