Curiosity

My favorite part of where I live now is four distinct seasons each year. Wisconsin brings cold winters, hot summers, beautiful falls, and well, rainy springs. In contrast, during my time in Florida, we experienced two seasons: intensely hot and wet, followed by relatively less hot and dry (if you’re curious, the latter is when you most likely came for vacation). Interestingly, seasons appear to have lost their uniqueness in space, as a study indicates that Mars once possessed them before its water reserves evaporated.

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…

For any given Mars rover, there are three major and newsworthy events in its life: launch, landing, and discovery. Aside from those times, hardly anyone is paying attention to the myriad of images being sent back on a non-stop basis. Only the most hardcore Mars nerds or those who operate the rovers will see them. Or, anyone who follows a Twitter bot that automatically tweets the pictures. It’s thanks to this bot that word is getting out about Curiosity’s cracked wheels.