Posted on 07/14/2022 9:44:40 AM PDT by Red Badger
A tangled, string-like object sits on the sandy brown Martian ground with a rock nearby.
This tangled mess of something is likely debris left over from Perseverance's arrival on Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
I just checked, and there are no Italian restaurants on Mars. So there goes one explanation for an odd object photographed by NASA's Perseverance rover on Tuesday. It isn't spaghetti. Nor is it a sea creature or a hair ball. It looks like a tangle of string or shredded material that's clinging together.
Mars landscape with the Perseverance rover's robotic arm inspects a flat rock near the center. A wheel is visible in the lower right corner and the sphagetti-like object is circled in red at the bottom. Enlarge Image This image from July 12, 2022, puts the spaghetti-shaped object (circled in red) in perspective with the rover's wheel and the end of its robotic arm. It looks like a good-size forkful.
NASA/JPL-Caltech; red circle by Amanda Kooser/CNET
The image comes from one of the rover's front-facing hazard avoidance cameras that keep an eye on the landscape to protect Percy when it's driving or using its robotic arm.
The most likely explanation for the tangle of material is debris from the mission. Perseverance has caught sight of its landing equipment leftovers from near and far. Notably, back in June the rover spotted a small piece of a thermal blanket wedged against a rock.
The rover's arrival on Mars in February 2021 was quite a dramatic event. The descent stage safely delivered the wheeled laboratory to the surface and then skedaddled away to crash at a distance. Percy caught sight of the crash, and you can see how bits and bobs of gear might've gotten spread across a wide area of the landscape.
So the Pastafarians were right all along.
L
Praise His Saucy Noodliness! RAmen!
Now, we just have to find the beer volcanoes and stripper factories He Promised. :P
(no, I’m not being serious, just in case anyone wondered).
Oh, never mind, it's my tail....
I’m sure glad we were able to get a RC car on Mars to take pictures of rocks and sand and trash!
Things we never could’ve done here.
It was certainly worth spending billions.
The green cover over that colander isn't fooling anybody.
Crab grass?
Clearly the remaining innards of a ball Albert Pujols hit that was never recovered.
Leftover Lomein.
An ancient seed that was trying to get fluids, to sprout, now petrified.
—— Notably, back in June the rover spotted a small piece of a thermal blanket wedged against a rock.——
Damned democrats leave trash everywhere!
Given that mars is billions of years old, and anything can happen in such a long time, the most likely explanation is that it evolved. It is reminiscent of compacted DNA.
Probably post asteroid strike, generating massive separation of minerals with conglomeration after cooling.
All it needs is an outer covering and replication tools. And an ongoing source of captured energy or material.
We finally have found proto life on Mars.
It’s pastafarian heaven. Let down.
That’s not a martian,that guy’s from Italy.😜
It like the hardware/lumber store the tiedown twine used to secure your load when you’re leaving. I wonder if the red flags are laying around nearby?
To be totally honest, that picture is a true anomaly and I can’t think of any natural process which could create it. My best guess is it is a piece of debris from a Kevlar parachute shroud.
I know a guy who truly believes we never went to the moon. On the flip side, my son is an astronautical engineer at NASA. The two met once. My son strung him along for a while. It was fun to watch.
“My son strung him along for a while. It was fun to watch.“
Oh gosh that would have been fun to watch!
Hah!
Old Soybean plant after harvest is my guess
Of course. It doesn't look like spaghetti, it's obviously frayed twine.
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