Dragon bones on Mars?
Our robotic Martian explorers have proven us loads of unusual rock formations of Mars. The skinny Martian environment and decrease gravity can produce odd rocky buildings that appear to be all the pieces from mini-hoodoos to flowers to doorways. On April 1, 2023 (Sol 3786), NASA’s Curiosity rover got here throughout a few of the weirdest-looking rock formations but. These rock slabs have rows of kind of equally spaced “spikes” protruding of them. They sort of appear to be fossilized spines. In reality, some are playfully calling them dragon bones.
Curiosity is presently on the head of the Gediz Vallis channel on Mount Sharp. The surroundings on this area is stunning. In addition to the weird rocks, Curiosity has been exploring and finding out the channel, mesas and buttes on these decrease slopes of the mountain.
Curiosity rover finds odd spiky rocks
The weird spikes had been discussed in a submit on the Fb web page ‘Mars Rovers: Mosaics, Panoramas & Updates’. As well as, the photographs had been additionally posted on Twitter and Reddit, producing some spirited discussions.
In 20 years of finding out Mars, that is essentially the most weird rock I’ve ever seen. I can not wait to have a microscopic picture of this one…It’s a part of a Gigapan of Gale crater you can see right here: https://t.co/LxljtDHyIl pic.twitter.com/wHhn1ckqjL
— Nathalie A. Cabrol (@shasta721) April 10, 2023
The spikes pictured above are essentially the most distinguished ones, though there are extra on close by rock slabs as nicely. All of them seem to observe the positive stratification layers within the sedimentary slabs. Many appear to be pretty recurrently spaced alongside horizontal rows. Are these clues to their origins? The options first confirmed up a couple of days in the past in MastCam photographs from Sol 3786 (the rover’s day 3,786 of the mission in Martian time). Since then, the rover’s ChemCam digicam has taken some nearer photographs, though in black and white.
How did these spine-like options type?
So, how did they type?
As of now, the Curiosity science crew hasn’t commented on them but. However, in fact, that hasn’t stopped folks from speculating. The present consensus appears to lean towards wind erosion, the identical as for different peculiar formations seen beforehand. As john_s suggested within the on-line discussion board Unmannedspaceflight.com:
I’ll throw out one speculation for these spikes: parallel ripples within the sediments, with coarser or better-cemented grains accumulating within the troughs of the ripples. That would end in recurrently spaced parallel linear options within the sediment which might be extra wind-resistant. Add wind erosion roughly parallel to these options, in order that they shield themselves as the remainder of the floor recedes, and also you would possibly get one thing like this. Or not.
See all of the ‘dragon bones’ in new GigaPan
You’ll be able to view all the spiky rocks on this GigaPan by Neville Thompson. Zoom in and see what else you’ll find!
You can even see all of Curiosity’s uncooked photographs here. (Greater than 550,000 thus far!)
Backside line: Did NASA’s Curiosity rover discover dragon bones on Mars? Nah. However these splendidly bizarre spiky rocks are a few of the strangest formations the rovers have seen thus far.
