That ‘Human Bone’ Found in a NASA Mars Photo Isn’t Even New. Here’s The Real Story – ScienceAlert

A 2014 Mars photograph that has strangely resurfaced in tabloids this month would now not whisper a femur amidst the rubble of the Crimson Planet. Adore every such photos to this level, the object you explore is correct a easy extinct Mars rock. And NASA debunked it six years ago.

The image used to be taken the exercise of the Curiosity Rover’s MastCam on 14 August 2014, and posthaste unfold amongst conspiracy theorists as proof Mars once harboured existence, prompting the online web narrate online agency to position the file straight.

“Viewed by Mars rover Curiosity the exercise of its MastCam, this Mars rock may well presumably well also perceive esteem a femur thigh bone. Mission science group members mediate its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, both wind or water,” wrote a NASA spokesperson in a brief blog submit.

“If existence ever existed on Mars, scientists query that it could per chance presumably presumably be minute easy existence forms called microbes. Mars likely never had sufficient oxygen in its atmosphere and in completely different locations to toughen extra complex organisms. Thus, gargantuan fossils are no longer likely.”

Seeing patterns in random configurations isn’t any longer no doubt a brand novel phenomenon. You most most doubtless build it each day with out realising – whether it be a face for your energy outlet or a pawprint in the cleaning soap scum for your bathe door. This phenomenon is named pareidolia, and it be thought to occur when some parts of the brain direction of visible info and jump to conclusions sooner than the comfort of your brain catches up.

Here on Earth, most folks recognise their pareidolia for what it is a ways, but for some reason – presumably because we are going to have the selection to no longer lag there and slip the objects in ask – pareidolia on Mars is fertile territory for conspiracy theorists.

Many rocks relish sparked flights of cherish about signs of frail existence and even fleshy-blown civilisations on Mars. The most infamous, presumably, used to be the image of a net page called Cydonia, taken in 1976, thought to whisper a enormous sculpture of a face (later, high-resolution photos showed it used to be… correct a rock formation).

There is moreover the Mars Bigfoot, the Mars cannonball, the Mars spoon, the Mars warrior lady and the Mars “Assyrian god”. Final year, a scientist claimed to relish identified fossilised bugs on Mars. Yet any other claimed to relish discovered mushrooms. But there’s completely no evidence that these photos whisper one thing completely different than weathered rocks.

We have been sending missions to Mars since the 1960s, collectively with four a hit rovers and five a hit landers. Scientists are itching to search out signs of existence – past or present – on that dusty red rock-ball. No longer easiest would or no longer it be charming to study what extraterrestrial existence appears to be esteem, it could per chance presumably presumably be mighty evidence that Earth isn’t any longer peculiar in the Universe.

Our efforts are currently centered on microbes. As NASA already noted, the Martian ambiance may well presumably well also very neatly be no longer and may well presumably well relish never been conducive to extra complex existence. If extra complex existence has thrived on Mars prior to now few billion years, our rovers and orbiters relish discovered completely no evidence for it. 

Whoever makes that first detection is going to lag down in historic past (and be a truly stable candidate for a Nobel Prize); scientists relish runt interest in masking up evidence of existence on Mars. This vaguely femur-formed rock is merely no longer it.

As for why the image is showing up over again in tabloids now, six years after it used to be discovered and debunked, your bet is as just appropriate as ours.