The NASA Mars rover Curiosity has sent back an image resembling remnants of an ancient civilization.
According to SciTech Daily, it is a strange rock named Terra Firme, which looks just like an open book. Curiosity captured this image on April 15, 2023, on the 3,800th day of its never-ending mission.
Mysterious rock book discovered on Mars – (Photo: NASA).
“The book” is quite small, measuring only about 2.5 cm in width, and has been thoroughly analyzed by NASA scientists.
They concluded that it is not a book from any extraterrestrial civilization, but rather a result of water depositing hard minerals, combined with wind erosion, sculpting a bizarre shape.
However, this discovery is still surprisingly valuable: While the rock may not be an actual book and not created by Martians, it serves as the clearest and most recent evidence of a water-rich world on Mars, which may have once supported life.
This also marks a new advancement in Curiosity’s mission, which includes exploring the vast area to which the rock belongs – the Gale Crater – analyzing climate, geology, and potential habitability.
Curiosity is a rover lander that functions like a robot and carries a mini laboratory to analyze samples. It is equipped with various surveying instruments, including the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) mounted on its arm, which is what captured the image of the mysterious rock book.
