So what is this strange rectangular shape discovered on Mars by Curiosity?

A door on March ? An exciting idea that quickly finds itself confronted with the reality of the facts.

On May 7, 2022, the Curiosity robot took a photo on the planet Mars that sparked many fantasies. Indeed, we can see a strange rectangular shape that may look like a door or an entrance built by an intelligent species.

A powerful zoom on a cavity

But this finding is of course far from proving the existence of life or a civilization on the red planet. As the media says UFO of Interestwhich presents itself as a fact-checker of everything concerning UFOs and other strange phenomena that can be observed in the sky and space, the cavity thus identified is much less interesting than one might think at first glance. ‘eye.

In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) admitted that the image is extremely zoomed in, which gives the impression of dealing with a door through which a human being could slip. But this one actually measures 30 by 45 centimeters, enough to let a small animal pass.

Our brain is playing tricks on us

Éric Bottlaender, engineer, author and journalist specializing in space issues (whom you can read on Clubic), explains that what some consider to be an entrance or an opening is in fact only a simple “break in the sediments of the area “.

If you see a door in the photo taken by Curiosity, know that it is a completely natural brain phenomenon called pareidolia. Our brain tries to make sense of an image and to find interpretations for elements that it has trouble identifying. He forces himself to perceive familiar shapes within an object, a scene or a landscape. Pareidolia can be visual, as is the case here, or auditory, when you think you hear human voices or animal cries in a noise, for example.

Present on Mars for almost ten years, Curiosity has already offered us pictures that can trigger pareidolia. Lizard, Sandal, Spoon and many more were believed to be sighted on the planet through photos captured by the robot. And it’s probably not the last time this will happen.

Sources: cnet