NASA’s Curiosity rover may have just uncovered the strangest rock formation yet. On Sol 3786 (ironically April 1, 2023), the rover captured bizarre-looking images of what closely resembles dragon bones. And it doesn’t appear to be a joke…
Curiosity successfully landed in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, as the largest and most capable rover at the time. Since, it’s made numerous breakthroughs, such as discovering evidence of past water on Mars, as well as organic molecules that are essential for life. Both being huge first steps in finding out if Mars once had life.
Although its declining condition and the launch of the more advanced Perseverance rover have put Curiosity’s heyday behind the 11-year-old robot, it continues to capture our imagination with rock formations that look all to familiar.
From the backbone of a fish to traffic light-looking structures, one may think we’ve seen it all. But now the internet is buzzing about newly released images form Curiosity’s mast camera that closely resemeble a dragon-like structure that many are calling “dragon bones.”
“In 20 years of studying Mars, that’s the most bizarre rock I have ever seen,” said Nathalie Cabrol, prominent Astrobiologist, and TED speaker. She explains that the structure gained its unique ripples “after lots of erosion,” presumably from wind.
Meanwhile, under the seem tweet, many users shared commonalities with the science fiction film Dune.
While the discovery of this strange-looking rock may not seem like a major breakthrough, it goes to show just how much we still have to learn about our neighboring planet.
In the meantime, the Curiosity rover’s main mission continues to be collecting data and determining whether the red planet ever was habitable to very small micro bacterial life.
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