Posted on 06/04/2022 7:43:38 AM PDT by BenLurkin
NASA's Curiosity rover has a knack for snapping eye-opening pictures of the Gale Crater on Mars. There was the (actually very small) "doorway" recently and then a facelike cliff last year. The latest "wow, look at that" image to come to my attention shows two delicate, gravity-defying formations reaching upward from the dusty Martian surface.
The SETI Institute -- a research organization focused on searching for life in the universe -- highlighted the image in a tweet last week, calling it a "cool rock."
SETI offered a possible explanation for the fantastical shapes: "The spikes are most likely the cemented fillings of ancient fractures in a sedimentary rock. The rest of the rock was made of softer material and was eroded away."
The image came from Curiosity's mast-mounted camera (Mastcam) on May 15. It can be hard to judge the scale of rocks and other small landscape features, but a wider view suggests the formations are very dainty. The spikes are reminiscent of a lovely flower or coral-shaped concretion (leftover from erosion of sedimentary rock) the rover spotted earlier this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
Quatermass and the Pit (US title: Five Million Years to Earth)
Tiny lightning 🌩️ strikes might occur in dust storms on Mars. But this was a phaser strike gone awry.
40W range no doubt...
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