Strange buildings on Mars. What they see on Mars: mysterious images from the Red Planet

Aliens in the frame. 11 Mysterious Objects Spotted on Mars

They say that Mars is the only planet in the solar system suitable for colonization by earthlings. Well, if we are preparing for such a future, then it would be nice to know in advance “who” might meet us there. Huffington Post has collected the most amazing and mysterious objects discovered in images of the surface of the Red Planet that were taken by Mars rovers over the years.

Human face

This object is also called the “Martian Sphinx”. It was in this form that it was captured by NASA’s Viking 1 automatic station in 1976, giving rise to theories about a message allegedly left by aliens for earthlings. The theme of a face on Mars has been played out in a number of science fiction films, cartoons and video games.


In fact, this is one of the hills of the Martian region of Cydonia in the northern hemisphere, which does not even have “cuttings” that would correspond to “facial features.” What we see in the top image is the result of the play of light and shadow, and this is how it was photographed by the Mars Global Surveyor in 1998:

Petrified iguana

The American Mars rover Curiosity caught this “animal” in the frame in January 2013, but perhaps it would have gone unnoticed if not for attentive bloggers. The signs of similarity are truly striking - the “head”, “dewlap”, “tail”, “hind leg” and even the “eye” are clearly distinguishable. And yet it’s just a stone, scientists say.
The bottom photo is the original, and the top one was made with more contrast so that the features of the “creature” were more noticeable.

Finger

And a year earlier, in 2012, the same Curiosity photographed something similar to a person’s index finger. The outline of the nail is even clearly visible on it. One can, of course, endlessly speculate about what happened to the owner of this giant petrified “finger.” But you can put up with the explanation of the imperturbable scientists: it’s just a stone, gentlemen!

Big Foot

This photo was taken by the Spirit rover in 2007. Someone clearly sees a female figure.

And some believe that this is practically a copy of the “Yeti” that appears in the film by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin, filmed in 1967 in California. Disputes about the authenticity of the shooting are still ongoing. Some believe that this is the only real evidence of the existence of Bigfoot, others are sure that it is just a man in a gorilla suit.

Martian rat

Another representative of the “rich animal world” of the Red Planet, captured by the Curiosity rover in 2013. For some reason, the earthlings developed a special feeling for the “animal”, so that he even started a Twitter account, where in the “About Me” section it is written: “People of the Earth. You found me. Prepare for invasion."

Femur

It’s simply amazing how many “human remains” enthusiastic bloggers notice in photographs from Mars! In mid-August 2014, the same Curiosity gave them an explosion of emotions by showing this “bone”.

Scull

Bloggers immediately recalled that back in 2006, Spirit photographed an object very similar to a human skull. And why is it only NASA and all other scientists who insist on talking about stones?

The Disappearing Donut

And in January 2014, the Opportunity rover threw up a real mystery. I took two pictures of the same place, and on the second one something like a donut suddenly appeared. It would seem, where? What kind of Martian mysticism is this? This is the explanation NASA found: this stone jumped out from under the tracks of the Mars rover while it was performing a maneuver.

Hard hat or bowler hat

What weird rocks there are on Mars, aren’t they? Curiosity photo from 2013.

Door knob

Looking at this image from Curiosity from 2013, you can imagine anything but an ordinary rock. For example, that it is a hammer sticking out of the sand. A broken part of the Mars rover. Or indeed the handle of the door leading to the mysterious underground houses of the Martians. But scientists don’t see anything unusual here either and insist that it is a stone. The metallic sheen indicates that the object has a hard, fine-grained structure and has been “polished” smooth by Martian winds.

Martian flower

Captured by the Curiosity camera in 2012. Scientists have still not provided a clear explanation of what it could be, although they are 100% sure that the object is not biological. Most likely, this is a so-called windstone - a stone protrusion turned and polished by the wind, according to NASA. The same ones are found in large numbers on Earth.

At the moment when the Viking 1 spacecraft transmitted the first photographs of the Martian surface, humanity experienced some disappointment: there was nothing in the photographs except boring sandy landscapes. Not everyone is ready to put up with this. Almost every year, the eye of an inquisitive researcher discerns in the photographs signs of the presence of life on Mars, traces of other civilizations, and even paranormal phenomena.

The first and most famous “ghost of Mars” was the “face” (“Martian Sphinx”), photographed in 1976 by the Viking 1 station in the Martian region of Cydonia.

Not far from the “Sphinx”, “pyramids” were also discovered. These photographs led to the emergence of a huge number of newspaper “canards”, fantastic and pseudoscientific rumors.

The quirk of Martian nature was later re-shot in higher resolution using the Mars Global Surveyor. As expected, the photo showed weathered rock. This does not prevent fans of fantastic theories from asserting to this day that the “sphinx” and “pyramids” are of artificial origin.

“There’s no spoon!” – said the heroes of the film “The Matrix”. “There is a spoon!” - say users of Internet forums, looking at the image taken on August 30 of this year by the Curiosity rover. In a photo from the Martian surface, they saw a giant flying spoon. And not only does the object, which looks like a tableware, “fly”, it also casts a shadow. However, according to scientists, this is just a bizarre rock formation.

The apotheosis of Martian discoveries was the discovery of the stone face of the American president. The image itself was taken in October 2005 by the Spirit rover at the top of Husband Hill in Gusev Crater. It is difficult to understand the train of thought of a person in whose mind a piece of rock was transformed into the image of the head of an American leader. Nevertheless, the photo allowed conspiracy theorists to assume that Obama represents the interests of aliens on Earth.

Another image taken by the Spirit rover in 2007, again in the Gusev crater, in the Columbia Hills area, with significant magnification, showed a “Martian Yeti” wandering somewhere or, according to another version, a “mermaid” - indeed, the bizarre formation looks like a sitting one humanoid, and the unclear image of the legs allows the imagination to depict a mermaid’s tail. However, according to astronomers who studied the image, the Bigfoots on Mars were completely shredded: the height of the figure is no more than 6 cm.

Not long ago, one of the images of the surface of the Red Planet taken by the Curiosity rover revealed a silhouette resembling a woman in a dress.

In one of the images, an unusual formation resembling a crab was noticed. The public demanded that NASA send the Curiosity rover to the rocks and clarify the situation. The American space department reacted to the “discovery” with understanding, but did not send the rover to Mars.

Another photo revealed something similar to a lizard or rat.

You can see the “bone” in this photo.

In September 2014, the Curiosity rover sent back a picture of a perfect-looking ball lying on the surface of the planet. According to scientists, the "artifact", which measures about one centimeter in diameter, was most likely formed as a result of a geological process called nodule. During it, something like a snowball forms around some small solid body.

"Fossilized Finger"

One of the photographs revealed a “humanoid” sitting in some kind of device.

Halle is an impact crater on Mars with a diameter of 224 km. Named after the astronomer Johann Gottfried Halle. It was first photographed by the Viking 1 spacecraft in the 70s. The crater is also called the “Martian smiley face.”

In 2008, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured another smaller “smiley crater.”

In this Martian landscape captured in 2011, you can see what appears to be trees. In fact, such marks on the sand are the result of the evaporation of frozen carbon dioxide.

A Curiosity image taken in April 2014 gave ufologists reason to assume that aliens accidentally revealed themselves with a flash in the dark. However, NASA scientists suggested that it could be an impact from a cosmic ray - a stream of charged particles.

Photos from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO or MRS) show features of Mars. For example, the first image above looks like a strange alien amoeba.

Below are other pictures of the planet, but let's look at them as a kind of Rorschach test. Perhaps some of the photos will seem like bacteria or amoebas under a microscope, or strange sea creatures on the ocean floor.

This is also one way to highlight the importance of the CTX context camera in studying the Red Planet. The HiRISE camera produces spectacular high-resolution images of the planet's surface, but its photos (as at the beginning of the article) are sometimes difficult to interpret. In this case, scientists use images from CTX; they have lower resolution, but a larger area with the surrounding landscape and geological formations is captured in the frame. As a result, the image of the bacterium turns into a crater with a peak in the center.

In fact, the close-up shows a formation in the Martian landscape that resembles a depression with drainage channels in the surrounding depressions.

The MPC context camera helps you put the scene into perspective.

NASA says the strange-looking rippled areas are similar to areas where they have previously tested. Although the strange formations are closely monitored, there is still an element of mystery. Similar depressions with concentric depressions exist in other places on Mars, and their origin is widely debated.

People love exciting space stories. That's why it's so interesting to speculate about the unusual objects seen in images of Mars. Our imagination turns rocks into faces and cosmic rays into alien messages.

Join us as we explore some of Mars' most famous mysteries and the scientific explanations behind them.

Classic: Face of Mars

This iconic image of the surface of Mars was taken by NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft, which landed on the planet in 1976. Everyone was excited about the face-shaped formation at the top middle of the picture. If you have a creative mind, then you can easily spot two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a strange hairstyle. As a result, some people thought that the captured face was a monument on Mars. Some even recognized him as a young Elvis Presley.

New look at the Face of Mars

The space agency wanted to find a scientific explanation for the appearance of the “monument” in the photo. In 2001, the situation was clarified by the Mars Global Surveyor research station, which received a fresh photograph of the face. The new photo had a higher resolution, and in it the studied area appeared more shapeless and with less sharp features. In short, it's just a pile of rocks and not any kind of alien.

In 2014, the Curiosity rover took a photo showing a very strange rock that looked a bit like a human femur. According to scientists, the non-standard shape was formed under the influence of wind or water erosion. If human remains were found on Mars, the whole world would already know about it.

Strange pattern

In March 2018, NASA released this image taken by MRS under the dramatic title "The Case of the Martian Boulder Piles." Don't explore the open space, but look at the dark sand dunes. And you will see a surprisingly orderly series of boulder piles.

NASA scientists believe the neat piles may have formed due to “frost heaving,” which consists of freezing and thawing cycles that gave the rocks their neat shapes. A similar process is observed on Earth.

Donald Trump, is that you?

News headlines in 2016 were full of statements about the appearance of current US President Donald Trump in a photo of Mars. In 2009, Opportunity captured a rock that, according to media reports, resembles the head of a businessman with his prominent hair.

The psychological phenomenon of pareidolia helped journalists spot the famous person in the rock, thanks to which in everyday life we ​​notice familiar figures and outlines of animals in the clouds.

Morse code?

In the image captured by MRS in February 2016, strange formations are visible. The dark, towering areas are dunes, reminiscent of the dots and dashes of Morse code.

Unfortunately, the code means some kind of gobbledygook. Planetary scientist Veronica Bray analyzed the dune image and told Gizmodo that the code reads "NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE!!"

Tadpole on Mars

Admittedly, this formation spotted by MRS looks a lot like a tadpole, yo-yo, or even a sperm. In fact, it is a round crater, and the tail was formed under the influence of water flow.

In February 2018, the space agency stated:

Based on the necessary information about the elevation of the area, we can conclude that the water is flowing outward.

Although the planet was filled with water in the past, not a single amphibious life form has been found on it at present.

Did you order fish?

A rock in the shape of a fish was found on Mars, although real fish are not found here. The unusual formation was captured by the camera of the Curiosity rover, and fans of UFOs and aliens were absolutely delighted with it. During filming, the illusion of the presence of fish was created by the shape of the rock and its lighting.

NASA considers the possibility of the presence of fossilized bones and animals on Mars unlikely. The agency explains its position by saying that there has never been enough oxygen in the atmosphere and other places on the planet to support the life of complex organisms.

The devil is in the details

A distinctive jet trail appears in this picturesque landscape of Mars captured in 2016 by Opportunity. In reality, this is a dust devil, the same ones are found on Earth. Rising dust devils are one of the main dangerous weather conditions on Mars that future human visitors to the planet must prepare for.

Avalanche

In this 2010 MRS image, a cloud of particles rises up a sheer cliff. Some may perceive this as a sign of a factory on Mars, but most likely it is the result of an avalanche consisting mainly of frozen carbon dioxide. According to NASA, in most cases, such an event occurs when it is spring on the planet, which on Earth corresponds to April - early May.

Did you order a donut?

A donut-shaped object (yes, many people actually see it in this photo) suddenly appeared in Opportunity's before-and-after photos. Some speculated that it was an alien mushroom.

The space agency has solved the mystery of the donut, explaining its unexpected appearance by saying that it was moved by the Mars rover during its research. For a complete set, snacks have yet to be found on the Red Planet.

Waffle Island on Mars

Donuts didn't work out on Mars, but NASA still has to figure out other edible finds on the planet. At the end of 2014, MRS captured an amazing wafer-shaped island on the surface of the planet. Measuring about 1.2 miles wide, it lies in an area of ​​lava movement. So you won’t find waffle irons on Mars, since, most likely, the observed shape of the island is the result of the movement of lava pushing the formation from the bottom up.

Dragon scales

Even NASA is excited about Game of Thrones, otherwise how can one explain why the space agency described this photo from the MRS as “Dragon Scales of Mars”.

The scaly pattern is not made by a mythical creature, but is the result of long-standing landscape processes associated with erosion. When NASA released this image in July 2017, it said the nature of how water interacts with rock and turns it into clay is not yet fully understood.

shiny object

In 2012, the Curiosity rover captured a bright, shiny object amid the dim landscape of Mars. All photos cover an area of ​​1.6 inches. NASA scientists have confirmed that the tiny bright piece is part of the geology of Mars.

floating spoon

Look at the center of the image taken by the Curiosity rover. Here you can see a spoon with a long handle casting a shadow downwards. Do you think people on Mars like to cook? But no. Mars has a weaker gravitational pull than Earth, so fragile formations like this one can float without falling to the surface.

A piece of metal on Mars

On Flickr, fans observing the surface of Mars have enhanced an image captured by Curiosity in early 2013 and highlighted an area that looks like a piece of metal. The explanation is not as funny as the imaginary races of alien blacksmiths. The object is either part of a meteorite, or simply came under strange lighting.

Table Mountain

In 2017, MRS looked down and captured this bizarre view in a region known as Noctis Labyrinthus, or the Labyrinth of Night. The undulating features around the mesa are sand dunes.

Heavily eroded, with boulder clusters and sand dunes on its surface, this layered mesa appears to be composed of sediment that is exhumed as it erodes.

Bright light at the end of the tunnel

In 2014, the Curiosity rover captured an interesting image showing a flash of light on the horizon of Mars. UFO fans became active and began to speculate about the light source as confirmation of the existence of aliens.

NASA scientist Doug Ellison shattered their illusions by explaining the flash of light by the passage of cosmic rays, that is, high-energy particles flying in space.

Part of the Mars rover

The next incident occurred in 2012, when the Curiosity rover noticed a shiny object on the surface that did not match its surroundings. However, the explanation turned out to be quite simple: NASA said that the object was a small piece of plastic that fell from the rover itself.

Mars rover sees "sticks"

It is difficult to judge the size of objects in close-up photographs of Mars. This image from Curiosity shows stick-like shapes, but they are only 6 millimeters long. Scientists speculate that they may be crystals or minerals.

Miniature meteorite

In mid-autumn 2016, while exploring the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, Curiosity discovered a small iron meteorite. The object could easily fit in the palm of your hand, so at first scientists mistook it for a stone. However, in close-up photographs, researchers saw a complex surface structure, indicating that it was a meteorite. As a result, this find was called the “Stone Egg” (Egg Rock).

Shiny item

The explanation for the shiny object spotted by the Curiosity rover is quite disappointing. Using the ChemCam instrument installed on the rover, NASA scientists determined that this was just a piece of plastic from the rover itself. The agency believes that it will not have a negative impact on the environment. And we can create fictional stories about how this piece of plastic will attract the attention of an alien race hiding on the Red Planet.

Strange deep hole

NASA doesn't have a definitive answer regarding the strange circular pit spotted by MRS in 2017, but the circular formation is likely the result of a surface collapse or an impact crater.

The pit is located near the south pole of the planet. In the summer, when the sun is low, the circle really stands out against the background of the surrounding landscape.

Statue of a woman on Mars

In 2007, the Spirit rover's camera captured images of small rocks on the surface of the Red Planet. One formation stood out because it looked like a small walking humanoid (or Bigfoot).

The famous UFO blog UFO Sightings Daily began to speculate that this statue of a woman was created by the inhabitants of the planet. The Planetary Society quickly labeled the object an optical illusion and another manifestation of pareidolia, our brain's ability to assign familiar images to random shapes or sounds.

Another woman on Mars

On Mars, a rock in the shape of a woman has been encountered more than once. The following image from the Mars rover Curiosity excited adherents of alien theories in 2015. A small dark object surrounded by a red circle resembles a figurine of a girl in a dress. To discover it, you only need a strong imagination.

NASA media relations specialist Guy Webster, commenting on this situation, said that, as in this case, in photographs of Mars it is very easy to find rocks or other things similar to terrestrial objects.

A crab monster crawls on Mars

In July 2015, Curiosity took a photo that may have been mixed in with hundreds of other photos of Mars. However, she became famous thanks to a Facebook group that took a close-up of one tiny fragment of the photo and assured everyone that there was what looked like a crab monster lurking in the shadows. It could easily pass for Cthulhu.

Ultimately, the crab creature seen is just a funny interplay of light and shadow that will remain a rock formation.

Bigfoot skull

It's fun to imagine what aliens on Mars would look like if they were real. You might conjure up images of big heads with big black eyes, or something with crazy tentacles and sharp teeth. While searching for alien life on the Red Planet, UFO fans spotted a strange figure that they believe is the skull of Bigfoot.

The presented photo was taken by Curiosity in early 2016. The random rock was thought to resemble a skull with a round top and large eye sockets. Is this really a Bigfoot skull? Of course not. It's just a rock that might inspire funny sci-fi stories about Bigfoot on Mars.

Head of the Ancient God

The left half of the image was taken by the Opportunity rover, and the right half shows the Neo-Assyrian goddess, whose statue is in the British Museum. Did you see a slight resemblance? It was first noticed by UFO fans, who drew attention to this rock on Mars.

As with other Earth-like rock formations on the planet, this is the result of our imagination and random light working together, and not the sign of an alien civilization with a penchant for carving sculptures.

Remains of the lander

The European Space Agency's ExoMars mission suffered a setback when its lander, Schiaparelli, crashed while landing on Mars in October 2016. MRS took this photo to help European Space Agency investigators figure out what happened to the ill-fated lander. A large dark spot corresponds to the crash site. Other highlighted areas show the front heat shield, parachute and rear heat shield.

Equipment for landing the rover

These prominent circles are located in the Eagle Crater (Eagl) on Mars. Look carefully at the upper right corner. Notice the little dot inside? This is the landing site that helped the Opportunity rover land on the planet's surface in 2004. The small dot in the lower left corner of the image is the outer shell and parachute.

NASA shared this recent photo of the landing gear in the crater in April 2017.

South Pole of Mars

This photo of the landscape resembles worm tracks or a strange anthill. In fact, it was the MRS that photographed the south pole of Mars in 2016. The surface of the pole consists of carbon dioxide (dry ice). There are no such formations created naturally on Earth.

The circular pits are holes in the dry ice layer that expand several meters every Martian year, NASA explains.

The face of a kissing alien

Get ready for a kiss! This Mars rock wants to kiss you. The unusual formation looks like a human face with eyes, nose, forehead, chin and kissable lips.

Alien fans spotted this rock while viewing images captured by Curiosity in 2016. It's a fun formation, but it's not a sign of alien life on the Red Planet.

Photos of aliens

With some free time and a little effort, anyone can find rocks on Mars that look like human or alien faces. The next two “faces” were captured by Curiosity in 2016. Again, this is explained by the pareidolia effect.

Blueberry

It's not edible. These hematite-rich beads are known by the cute nickname “blueberries.” In 2004, near Fram Crater, the Opportunity rover noticed small rocks a few millimeters in size.

Scratches on Mars

What does it look like? Claw marks? This is an image of a series of wavy lines captured by MRS in 2017. The space agency says the linear gullies were likely created by dry ice sliding down the slopes of sand dunes.

Collection of spheres

In 2004, Opportunity captured a stunning image of a hematite-rich “blueberry.” In 2012, he photographed a similar unusual formation, but this time on the Kirkwood outcrop.

Kirkwood's beads do not have the iron-rich blueberry composition and also differ in concentration, distribution and texture, NASA says.

These balls puzzled the space agency. The effects of erosion can be seen on some of the tiny spheres.

Bomb

In December 2017, a popular UFO fan blog posted a close-up of a spherical object spotted by the Curiosity rover and suggested it was a cannonball left over from a war on the Red Planet. The NASA rover team responded on Twitter that the clump is less than 5mm in size and is actually made of calcium, sodium and magnesium sulfate.

Mars was named after the god of war, but these strange things are not cannonballs. This is a pebble. With a radius of 5 mm, they are composed of calcium, sodium and magnesium sulfate, which distinguishes them from hematite-rich "blueberries".

Incredible facts

Since the ultra-modern Mars rover "Curiosity" landed on Mars in August 2012 and began to study in detail the surface and atmosphere of the Red Planet, more and more mysterious photographs began to appear in the press. However, strange pictures appeared long before the trip "Curiosity".

The faces of sphinxes, footprints of Bigfoot, a UFO and even a human finger - all this, the fruit of our rich imagination or something really worthy of attention?

Mysterious images from Mars 2012

Mars rover "Curiosity" regularly sends pictures of the Red Planet that make scientists think. NASA already has some very strange photos, which scientists cannot yet explain. For example, what kind of white light is dancing on the horizon of the planet and what kind of strange, although unnoticeable, balls are flying in the sky?

The same photo, but in a different color. Strange UFOs are clearly visible in the sky above the horizon.

Although NASA representatives did not comment on these images in any way, alien hunters are somehow sure that these objects are spaceships of an extraterrestrial civilization, who follow our "ridiculous" attempts to explore the Red Planet.

Photography experts are convinced that these "strange blobs" are just image defects, so-called "dead pixels."

Strange finds on Mars

Reports that a finger was found on Mars appeared back in August. In fact, these were pictures of Mars rocks, one of which strikingly resembled a finger.

In another photo, the stone looked like... an upside-down slipper.

If you look closely at another lonely stone, it may seem that some strange creature is looking at us:

The history of illusions of Mars: what they see on Mars

People have been seeing mysterious objects on Mars for centuries, ever since telescopes began observing the Red Planet. However, today scientists are skeptical about such findings, finding quite plausible explanations for them.

Scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries were sure that there was life on Mars

In 1784, the famous British astronomer William Herschel noticed dark and light areas on Mars, suggesting that these were oceans and land. He assumed that Mars is inhabited by intelligent beings, whose environment resembles ours on earth.

This theory has been popular for about 100 years, and other astronomers have also argued that dark areas on Mars could be vegetation. Fortunately, Herschel made a number of really worthwhile astronomical discoveries, so the theory of the existence of Martians was just a minor speculation.

At the time Mars came close to Earth in 1877, an Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli noticed through his telescope that the surface of Mars is cut by grooves. He called these cracks and depressions "channels", which led some to think that these objects were artificially created by intelligent life.

This misconception began to spread thanks to an astronomer named Percival Lovell. In 1895, he presented diagrams of these channels in his book "Mars", and later wrote another book about it "Mars and life on it"(1908).

People continued to believe in the existence of intelligent Martians who built canals. This belief, according to historians, was fueled by the enormous construction of the Suez Canal, a true engineering marvel of the time, which was completed in 1869.

Myths about Martians were debunked at the beginning of the 20th century, when it became clear that the “channels” on Mars are just an optical illusion: when you look at the Red Planet through weak telescopes, the mountains and craters of Mars come together, forming straight lines. Later, spectral analysis of light from Mars showed that there is no liquid water on its surface.

Face on Mars

This story began in 1976, when NASA released images taken by the spacecraft of an interesting Martian mountain. "Viking 1". The mountain above somewhat resembled a human face with eye sockets and nostrils.

30 years later, this face still gives rise to a lot of myths and mysterious theories, and many people believe that this face is... the work of an ancient Martian civilization, similar to the one that built the sphinx and pyramids on Earth.

From a bird's eye view, the shadows cast by the mountain really resemble a face. However, photographs of the same mountain from other angles that were taken by the spacecraft "Mars Express", show that this mountain is completely different from the statue of a person.

The scientific world even came up with the term pareidolia , which denotes a type of visual illusion when a person sees in a photo or painting something that is not actually there, but the details of the object add up to a certain picture. Pareidolia is associated with our heightened sensitivity to detail. We are so used to seeing human faces that we see them even where they are not really there.

A tree on Mars is another visual illusion

In 2001, 7 years before his death, the famous science fiction writer Arthur Clarke, one of the authors of the famous film "2001: A Space Odyssey", announced that noticed patches of vegetation, including trees, in new photographs from Mars that were taken by the research station "Mars Global Surveyor".

The branches that Clark thought were trees are actually what Mars explorers call "spiders". They really resemble tree branches and change in different seasons due to the melting of carbon dioxide in the ice caps that are located at the poles of the Red Planet. When CO2 ice turns into gas, it begins to flow, creating "branches."

Man on Mars - an interesting photograph from Mars

In a photograph taken by the Mars rover "Spirit" in 2007, you can see the figure of a man who is dressed in a cassock and bowed in a position of prayer. Of course, this is just a stone that looks like a person in the photo.

Also in 2011, Italian Matteo Ianneo reported that he saw a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi in profile on one of the photographs of Mars and even reported the exact coordinates of this place.

Later it turned out that with a clearer image it was just a banal crater:

An interesting photo was taken in September 2012. Visible in the photo real Bigfoot figure! At least, exactly the way we imagine it.

On August 7, 2012, Curiosity, a complex 900-kilogram rover equipped with the latest technology, began operating on the surface of Mars. In the future, Curiosity may become one of the most successful space missions: the scientific equipment on board is designed to study in detail the geological history of Mars and shed light on the question of life on this still mysterious planet. Despite the fact that the main work of the device will end after 668 Martian days, in total Curiosity is capable of operating for at least 14 years

Typical Martian landscape during the day

Part of the Gale Crater mosaic

Curiosity wheel track on the sand of Mars

Sand, dust and stone called Burwash. The picture was taken from a distance of 11.5 cm from the stone, the dimensions of the picture are 7.6 by 5.7 cm

Sand drift, from the slope of which Curiosity took soil samples. On the left we see a raw image of the dune, showing what it looks like on Mars, where the sky often has a reddish tint due to the large amount of dust. On the right, the image has been processed to show what the same area would look like on Earth. The size of the round stone above the center of the image is about 20 cm

“Blueberries” are small spherical inclusions in the Martian soil. The balls are about 3 mm in size, they contain a large amount of red iron ore, which is formed in the presence of water

The picture shows the bottom of the vehicle, all six wheels and the marks left by them. In the foreground are two pairs of black and white HAZCAM navigation cameras

Curiosity has just climbed the Rocknest dune to take the first soil samples of the Red Planet. The image was taken on October 3, 2012, on the 57th day of operation of the device

The MAHLI camera looks at Curiosity's wheel.

Morning on Mars

Dark gray Martian rock. The image was taken with a MAHLI camera from a distance of 27 cm. The area of ​​the image is 16 by 12 cm, and the resolution is 105 microns per pixel. Despite its impressive clarity, scientists have been unable to resolve the granules or crystals that make up the stone.

The “Pyramid” on Mars is a rock called Jake Matijevic. The image was received on September 21, 2012.

Studying the "Pyramid" at close range. Chemical analysis of the stone showed that it is rich in alkali metals, as well as halogens - chlorine and bromine. Judging by the spectrum, this stone is a mosaic of individual grains of minerals, including pyroxene, feldspar and olivine. In general, the composition of the stone is very atypical for Martian rocks

Color image of a "pyramid" on Mars. The image has been white-balanced to reveal differences in the inclusions on the stone.

On the 55th day of stay on Mars. Curiosity's focus is on a sandy deposit called Rocknest, from the slope of which the rover took its first soil samples.

Remains of an ancient stream bed on Mars. The fact that water once flowed in this place is evidenced by many pieces of gravel and rocks that have a smooth round shape. In addition, the size of some of these pebbles suggests that they could only have been transported by a stream of water. The rock, chipped like a broken sidewalk, is of sedimentary origin

Looking back on the journey

Evening on Mars. The image was taken on day 49 of Curiosity's operation.

The Martian stone, which received the name Et-Then from scientists. The image was taken by the MAHLI camera (Mars Hand Lens Imager) on October 29, 2012, on the 82nd day of Curiosity’s stay on the Red Planet. The rock was photographed from a distance of 40 cm, the width of the image is only 25 cm. Et-Zen was discovered near the left front wheel of the device when Curiosity was preparing to take soil samples in the town of Rocknest

Rocks on Mars. Mosaic obtained by the MAHLI camera on the 76th day of Curiosity's stay on the Mysterious Planet