‘Footprints’ Photographed on the Surface of Mars by Curiosity Rover

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Rover, which has been exploring the surface of Mars for the past 14 years, continues to come across interesting objects, like last month when it photographed what looks a bit like a footprint.

Space.com reports that Curiosity captured the “footprints” on Mars’ Mount Sharp, and the scientific team operating the autonomous vehicle identified “features unlike quite anything we have seen in the past.”

What Is It?

NASA explains that the unusual features are broad, shallow pits on the bedrock.

“Pits are not uncommon — when resistant nodules or pebbles weather out of their host rock, they leave behind a void,” says Michelle Minitti, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

“But the pits of this week were much broader and shallower than past features and were not accompanied by obvious objects that were once in the pits.”

The images were also captured by Curiosity’s instruments, the Mastcam camera and ChemCam.

“MAHLI and Mastcam were particularly interested in these features, acquiring stereo mosaics of them and tightly overlapping image sets that can be turned into a digital elevation model of their structure,” Minitti says.

“They were a welcome new puzzle into the processes that have affected this particular section of rocks in the stratigraphy of Mount Sharp.”

Minitti argues that the bedrock is “anything but boring.” But a footprint belonging to some Martian creature would undoubtedly be more interesting, perhaps belonging to the “jellyfish” that was spotted on another Curiosity photo recently.

Sadly, that too had a more prosaic explanation: it was likely a camera artifact caused by a cosmic ray striking the camera sensor at the exact moment the photo was taken.

As mentioned, Curiosity has been roaming Mars for 14 years and has a knack for finding interesting objects. Like rocks that closely resemble coral found in Earth’s oceans.

This photo was captured by the Mars Curiosity rover on July 24.

Curiosity also photographed a strange crater on Mars where there is an abundance of rocks that look like dragon scales .

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

NASA calls them “honeycomb-shaped polygons” that crisscross the surface. They were pictured in the newly named “Antofagasta” crater, which is just 32 feet (10 meters) in diameter.