Mars Rover captured something interesting [rock]

JAFO

Active Member
This popped up on Reddit and I am stumped. Third of the way from the bottom, slightly to the right of left edge.
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SOURCE: https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/787528/

Reddit Thread:
A Tic-Tac has been spotted on Mars by the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Mast Cam on Sol 2692 3 March 2020!
 
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I almost posted this to the forum, but it was pretty quickly debunked even across all the reddit woo sites, since the object is a) maybe an inch long since the photo is from the rover looking down at the nearby ground, b) the supposed shadow is at the wrong angle compared to the other shadows, c) the cast shadow is too dark for an object away from the ground and d) if you look at the pebble itself (in the bottom center) in context it has a shadow and it looks perfectly normal.

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View attachment 78232
I almost posted this to the forum, but it was pretty quickly debunked even across all the reddit woo sites, since the object is a) maybe an inch long since the photo is from the rover looking down at the nearby ground, b) the supposed shadow is at the wrong angle compared to the other shadows, c) the cast shadow is too dark for an object away from the ground and d) if you look at the pebble itself (in the bottom center) in context it has a shadow and it looks perfectly normal.

View attachment 78231
Adding a screenshot from the color Gigapan image with added shadow line notations. I am not sure how this all lines up in this 2 dimensional image to the true three dimensional space. If the pill shaped rock is not casting the shadow, there most be another object BEHIND it casting that shadow. No?

Screenshot 2025-03-14 at 11.30.58 AM.jpg


Notice how all the shadows are near vertical. One of the only other examples of a smooth rock in the area appears as I would expect a smooth rock on the sand or another rock.
Screenshot 2025-03-14 at 11.47.14 AM.jpg


Gigapan Source: https://www.gigapan.com/embeds/NPerz0g6Gnw/
 
This popped up on Reddit and I am stumped. Third of the way from the bottom, slightly to the right of left edge.
Any analysis of a Mars image has to consider the scale of the object. Curiosity takes both micro close-ups and stitched-together massive panoramas, and without any recognizable object for scale, you really need to include that information on any NASA photo.

Anyway ...it's just a rock, or my mother would have called it, "A wee chuckie", as she chucked it away. The only question I would have is "How big is that wee chuckie?"
 
Not behind it, but in front of it, the cigar-shaped rock immediately below it. Zoom in and you can see it.
I can't see it either. I've convinced myself that it's a bit of exposed vertical rock face, like a miniature retaining wall, with the top of the rock buried under the sand/dust slope.
Screenshot_20250314-213902_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
Not behind it, but in front of it, the cigar-shaped rock immediately below it. Zoom in and you can see it.
I am not understanding which rock you are referring to as cigar-shaped rock. Using the other image Mick provided we cn still see the sun is casting vertical shadows. What object is in this same direction above the shadow circled in this image?
Screenshot 2025-03-14 at 1.42.27 PM.png
 
Worth noting that this is Mars, the gravity is less, skinny little rock projections that look odd to us happen there...

Screenshot 2025-03-14 183811.jpg

Look at what is going on down at the bottom of the image...

Far as I can see, in common with all of these "weird object spotted on Mars" claims... it is a rock.
 
look at this shadow from the post above yours, that rock must be hanging on by a thread!
They really look like they are floating! In the first one you circled (it looks like a piece of shrimp haha), is it connected on both sides at the base? My brain is struggling to make out what 3d shape on the ridge makes that shadow. My brain fails at 3d rendering.
 
I'm having trouble locating it now, but I swear I found a spanish-speaking group discussion of these images, including the AI upscaled version, from ~2022. I'm digging back through my browsing history but that spans 3-4 devices and two different browsers. BOLO.
 
Found it!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR1Km_F1QN0


I'm relying on auto-translated English captions here, but this is where the upscaled image is originally presented. I'm posting this here with little further info as a placeholder, I've been working hard the last few days and I'm a bit scatterbrained. I'll go through and summarize the claims presented in the video at a later date.

Discord user Azuul was the one who I believe started the renewed discussion. I believe he saw the twitter/X post here and it snowballed:

Source: https://x.com/Kabamur_Taygeta/status/1899798993317790183


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"Yesterday at 6:25 AM" indicates 2025-03-13 at 6:25AM CDT.
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Agreed. And the shadow below in the original picture is from the attached tictac outcropping. I can see it now that this image gives more information as to what the formations are in three dimensions.
having the rover in the shot also helps with scale.
 
This view makes me think that it is part of an outcropping from the formation behind it and the shadow below does belong to the pill-shaped rock.

Wow- I sort of assumed the photo was looking down into a valley or something like that, that it was a sort of panorama.

When I saw the Reddit title "A Tic-Tac has been spotted on Mars by the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Mast Cam on Sol 2692 3 March 2020!" I imagined it was referring to a Tic-Tac in the David Fravor context.

Not something the approximate size of a Tic-Tac.
 
These aeolian wind-formed features are fascinating. Especially when you consider that the air pressure on Mars is about one percent of Earth's atmosphere, so the wind must be very feeble indeed.

But there is nothing else eroding material on this planet - micrometeoroid dust would be mostly stopped by the atmosphere, so this type of erosion would be largely absent compared to wind erosion.
 
Perhaps that low pressure and feeble winds allow such strange overhangs etc. to form over time without being destroyed. I know dust devils and storms have been seen on Mars, the dustcausing complications for solar panels on the rover, iirc.
 
Perhaps that low pressure and feeble winds allow such strange overhangs etc. to form over time without being destroyed.
I imagine the lower gravity helps, too. The thing a lot of people don't think about is that conditions are VERY different on Mars than on Earth; so you are going to see features that you'd not see on Earth. (Another thing most people miss is the scale of what these images are usually showing. This thread has some helpful images for explaining that.)
 
Getting the navcam images with the rover in shot really help to give an idea of scale. I wonder if any similar shots exist for the "rodent on Mars"?

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(I thought there was a Metabunk thread on that one but I can't find it now.)
 
Getting the navcam images with the rover in shot really help to give an idea of scale. I wonder if any similar shots exist for the "rodent on Mars"?
If the info I find is correct that should have been the photos from Sept 28, 2012, at about Sol 50 or Sol 51 (the Martian "day" is approximately 25 hours long, so they don't correspond with Earth days). But I lack the urge to pore over every one of the thousands of rocks that have been photographed to find an image that will get me internet clicks.

Here's a clip from a short article on Mars nonsense:
External Quote:

5. Rat on Mars?

UFO buffs zeroed in on a portion of a panoramic photo taken by NASA's Curiosity rover in September 2012. These viewers spotted an object that looked like a rat lying between two rocks. While it's a creative idea, the "Mars rat" is unlikely, scientists have said. The Red Planet has extremely cold temperatures, is baked in radiation and lacks a thick, protective atmosphere like Earth's, making it an extremely hostile environment for life.
https://www.livescience.com/51996-mars-hoaxes-conspiracy-theories.html
 
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