NASA ‘s Perseverance rover captured the image of a cat-shaped rock that has already become a trend among space fans.
Perseverance , a NASA rover currently studying an ancient river delta that would have brought liquid water to Jezero Crater billions of years ago, captured a photograph showing the first “cat” on Mars .
In the image, you can see a rock with a shape that reminds thousands of space and astronomy enthusiasts around the world of the domestic cat.
In the new batch of photographs captured by the NASA explorer robot that is currently on the Martian surface, this image is found with the “cat bread” rock , a nickname with which various media in English have nicknamed it due to that its silhouette is like that of a feline when it hides its legs and tail under its body.
The photograph was captured by the Perseverance rover in the Jezero crater on September 8, 2022 and has already become the photo of the week of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) due to the media impact it had and its popularity in social networks.
Known figures on Mars
For some time now, thousands of people with an interest in space exploration have begun to find similarities in the barren wasteland of Mars to which they have access thanks to images captured by NASA ‘s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers . In addition to rocks and other samples they are collecting to bring back to Earth in the next decade, these robots also take photos that the agency then releases for study.
In addition to the aforementioned “cat”, Internet users also found other similar ones on the “red planet” such as what they have described as a “swirl of spaghetti” or a “door” in an intriguing image where you can see a kind of cavity in a rock wall located somewhere on Mars .
Pareidolia in photos of Mars
The tendency to look for figures on Mars that can be associated with some more everyday ones is due to pareidolia , the tendency of human beings to recognize familiar objects with random shapes. This phenomenon occurs when, for example, some people see faces in sockets. Due to the enormous amount of rocks on the red planet, people’s imaginations are fired.
In the case of the “cat” from Mars , the angle of the photo and the way the shadows fall highlight two pointed, ear-shaped surfaces on the “head” of the rock and a large “body” like if it were a bread. However, it is important to note that if it had been captured at another angle or at any other time of the Martian day, it could have been any rock.
In the past, we have already had similar cases but outside of Mars such as the “lunar cube” or the “alien hut” that were detected by China ‘s Yutu 2 rover on the Moon . Mere coincidences as, upon further investigation, they turned out to be nothing more than rocks.
