NASA has made a strange discovery, to say the least. On Mars, the exploration and research rover Perseverance discovered pasta-like material. It is coiled, similar to a rope. It also resembles a whirlpool.
The space agency made the image available on its site official. It was captured at 4:56 pm Martian time by one of the cameras used to avoid bumping into obstacles on the way. As the rover did not have direct contact with the object, its size is unknown, but it is likely to be only a few centimeters.
The discovery took place in Crater Lakeone of the regions of the planet where an ancient river is believed to have passed.
This location is one of the places that makes science believe that there may be or have been life on Mars, probably microbial. Rocky materials recovered by Perseverance are yet to be analyzed to try to find more evidence.
Most likely, though, the “noodles” are space junk. That’s because Perseverance had already found another unusual object in June: a kind of thermal blanket hidden in a rock. It was attached to a package of the rocket-powered jet that helped the probe land on the planet’s surface in 2021.
All samples collected by the rover are expected to return to Earth by the year 2033, according to the US national agency.
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