NASA's Perseverance rover discovers mysterious 'helmet' on Mars

(Dan Tri) - The Red Planet never ceases to surprise with its strange rock shapes, and recently, the Perseverance rover added another mysterious object: a rock that looks exactly like a medieval helmet.

NASA's Perseverance rover captured this image of a strange rock on August 5 (Photo: NASA).

On August 5, the Perseverance rover's Mastcam-Z instrument captured a strangely shaped rock, with a pointed peak and a rough surface texture that evokes the image of an old combat helmet.

“This hat-shaped rock is made up of spheres. Its name is Horneflya,” David Agle, a spokesperson for the Perseverance team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Space.com .

Decoding the mystery of the spheres

A rock on Mars looks like a 17th century Dutch beret (Photo: NASA).

On Earth, similar nodular structures can form through chemical weathering or mineral precipitation, so scientists suspect that these spheres on Mars may have formed when groundwater flowed through pores in sedimentary rocks.

However, they are still not sure whether all the spheres formed this way. Perseverance's science team will have to work hard to analyze more rocks to find the answer to this geological mystery.

Additionally, Perseverance found a similar rock this past March, suggesting these structures may be more common than we thought.

Cosmic Pareidolia and the Perseverance Mission

This helmet-shaped rock is a prime example of a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia, which describes the human brain's tendency to impose a familiar pattern on otherwise random visual data.

This isn’t the first time Perseverance has spotted strange rock formations. Previously, the rover has captured images of a donut-shaped meteorite and avocado-shaped rocks.

But while they are psychological phenomena, these shapes still have great scientific value. They help scientists piece together the environmental history of the Red Planet, showing how wind, water and internal processes have shaped the landscape over billions of years.

Perseverance is currently exploring the northern rim of Jezero Crater after successfully completing a challenging summit climb, continuing its mission to search for signs of past life and the geological secrets of Mars.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/xe-tu-hanh-perseverance-cua-nasa-phat-hien-mu-bao-hiem-bi-an-tren-sao-hoa-20250828002944706.htm