NASA discovers giant bone-like rock on Mars

The search for life on other planets is a key effort that drives humanity’s space exploration, aiming to find a planet that once supported life in the past, making it a new home for humanity in the future. When it comes to this story, Mars often gets the most attention.

While the Curiosity Rover was exploring Gale Crater on Mars, the device discovered a strange object. The rover's cameras captured an image of the object that bears a striking resemblance to a fossilized skeleton. In the image, part of the skeletal structure is hidden in the soil, while the rest is exposed on the surface of Gale Crater.

Raw image captured by Curiosity Rover's Mast Cam. (Photo: NASA)

Many in the online astronomy community have shared their views on the strange structure on social network X (formerly known as Twitter). Some have said it resembles a fish bone or a fir tree branch.

The location of this fossilized bone-like rock is also interesting, it is located in the Gale Crater. Previously, it was thought that the surface of Mars once contained large amounts of water. Gale Crater was one of the largest lakes on Mars, before it dried up about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

So, the discovery of this bone-shaped rock in the dry lake bed further fuels the theory that it belongs to an ancient marine animal. Another netizen even likened it to the bones of a coiled dragon.

Nathalie A. Cabrol, an astrobiologist, said this was the strangest rock she had ever seen in her 20 years of studying Mars. According to her, there is a more plausible explanation for this skeleton on Mars, all because of the harsh Martian winds, combined with strong water flows, creating this strange shape.

Nathalie A. Cabrol explains that, over a long enough period of time, this erosion can create enough geometric shapes that humans can easily relate to.

HUYNH DUNG (Source: Unbelievable-facts)

Source