55 weird objects seen on Mars, explained - CNET

NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter zipped near Mars in 1976 and took this now iconic image of the surface.

NASA's Curiosity rover doesn't just eye the local geology; it also documents what's happening in the sky.

Citizen scientist Kevin Gill spotted this odd, small rock in a Curiosity rover image from late 2020 and cracked a joke about it looking like a drill bit. .

He spotted this brachiosaurus-shaped rock as snapped by the Perseverance rover on Mars in April 2021.

The HiRise camera team for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted a Planters Mr.

NASA's Perseverance rover snapped a view of this odd rock on March 2021.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter viewed the "Happy Face Crater" on Mars in both 2011 and 2020 and found some changes in its complexion.

NASA's Curiosity rover snapped this view of a dark, shiny boulder on Mars on Dec.

NASA's Curiosity rover snapped this shiny, flattish rock in November 2020, leading space fans to compare it with various food items, including pancakes and melted chocolate ice cream.

NASA's Curiosity rover sent a photo back to Earth in 2014 that showed a very odd rock shaped a bit like a femur bone from a human thigh.

This view from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, snapped in February 2016, shows some strange formations on the surface of the red planet.

A jelly-doughnut-shaped object appeared rather suddenly in a set of before-and-after images from NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars.

There's nothing edible here. These hematite-rich spherules are known by the cute nickname "blueberries." NASA's Mars Opportunity rover spotted the small, BB-sized pebbles in 2004 near the Fram Crater.

Admittedly, this formation spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looks a lot like a tadpole or even a yo-yo or sperm.

A peculiar jet appears far back in this scenic Mars landscape photo taken by NASA's Opportunity rover in 2016.

In December 2017, A popular blog for UFO enthusiasts posted a close-up look at this spherical object spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover and suggested it was a cannonball left over from a war on the red planet.

A cloud of particles puffs upward at a steep cliff in this 2010 image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

An image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from late 2014 showed a strange waffle-shaped island on the planet's surface.

Even NASA gets excited for Game of Thrones, which is a good explanation for why the space agency described this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image as "Dragon Scales of Mars." .

That happened in 2012 when NASA's Curiosity rover spotted a bright, shiny object tucked into the dull Martian soil.

Take a look at the center of this image from NASA's Curiosity rover.

In 2017, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looked down and snapped this image of a bizarre-looking formation in a region known as Noctis Labyrinthus, which translates to "labyrinth of the night." The wavy areas around this mesa are sand dunes.

That weird shiny object spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover had an anticlimactic explanation.

NASA's Spirit rover delivered an image in 2007 showing a view of craggy little rock formations across the surface of Mars.

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows some stick-like figures, but they're only about a quarter-inch (6 millimeters) long.

In October 2016, NASA's Curiosity rover spotted a weird little iron meteorite during its explorations around the base of Mount Sharp in the Gale crater on Mars.

NASA posted this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image in March 2018 with the dramatic title "The Case of the Martian Boulder Piles." Look past the dark slug-like sand dunes and instead contemplate the open spaces.

President Donald Trump makes a cameo appearance on Mars in this 2009 image from NASA's Opportunity rover that hit the news in 2016.

NASA isn't offering any definitive answers on this odd round pit seen by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2017, but the circular formation is likely a collapse pit or an impact crater. .

This image from the Mars Curiosity rover excited alien theorists earlier in 2015.

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover snapped a photo that could have blended in with a hundred other Mars photos in July 2015?

The image comes from NASA's Curiosity rover from early 2016.

On the left is a cropped view of an image from the Mars Opportunity rover.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this photo of the crash site to help ESA investigators work out what happened to the ill-fated lander.

That's the lander that carried the Mars Opportunity rover down to the planet's surface in 2004?

What you're actually seeing here is a 2016 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter view of Mars' south pole.

Alien fans spotted the rock while looking through images sent back by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover in late 2016.

With a little time and effort, anyone can find rock formations that look like human or alien faces on Mars.

This image comes from NASA's Curiosity rover, which snapped the landscape view in late 2016.

This is a look at a series of squiggly lines captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2017.

Some Mars-watching space fans on Flickr enhanced an image captured by the Mars Curiosity in early 2013 to highlight what appears to be a hunk of metal just hanging out on the red planet's surface.

The space agency was concerned it might be a small piece of the rover, but a closer look showed the potential "foreign object debris" to be a flake-like bit of the natural Mars landscape

NASA's Mars Reconaissance Orbiter caught sight of this Pac-Man imagery on Mars in early 2018

"When two lava flows in opposite directions mingle and swirl, the coils are the hardened results," says the University of Arizona team that works with the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

A familiar Muppet face appeared on Mars in this mid-2018 image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter snapped this Mars view on Sept