ICYMI: NASA Helicopter Rover And ‘Mouse’ On Mars Spotted

ICYMI: NASA Helicopter Rover And ‘Mouse’ On Mars Spotted - Did the NASA rover spot a mouse on the barren land of Mars? A New York Post article trended this Thanksgiving weekend after reporting a ‘giant mouse’ spotted by amateur astronomers who use data provided by the Curiosity rover.

The strange image was first reported in YouTube by ArtAlienTV channel, citing the RAW image published on the Mars NASA JPL website.

The image above shows the alleged mouse on Mars. 

YouTuber Joe White says the image was linked by one of his subscribers. “There’s something in the middle,” he said while pointing his mouse pointer on the mouse on Mars (no pun intended) in the Gale crater.

Let’s cut to the chase: The giant “mouse” on Mars isn’t a mouse, a baby lion, or a cat. It’s actually a rock or rocks that form like a rodent. On Earth, we also have rocks that form different stuff - and these are all sculpted by nature.

White points out that it could be a “couple of rocks” and the tail part could be a small rock blocking the much darker rock. “On a closer inspection, it does look like a rodent. But the problem is, with these images, the quality is so low and we can only speculate.”

He concluded that the rodent/mouse rock is probably an optical illusion. You can watch his video on YouTube (click the link to watch it on a new tab).

The rodent or mouse on Mars is not the first rock to capture the attention of fans of “search for life” beyond the Earth’s gravitational influence. The most popular is the face on Mars in the Cydonia region in 1976.

On Mars, there’s also a floating spoon, a human walking, a Martian buddha, a strange flash of light, and so on. You can find these optical illusion-centric list on Space.com.

NASA Might Use Drones To Explore Mars, But Not In 2020

On Earth, drones are becoming more popular, so much so that the government wants to regulate them. Large corporations and startups, including Hollywood, are using drones to lower the cost of production and improve existing products and services.

For instance, Google and Facebook are testing drones to improve the internet, whilst the retail giant on web, Amazon, is testing its own drone delivery platform to generate more revenue.

On other planets, specifically on Mars, NASA might use drones to effectively explore and improve data gathering. As reported by the NPR, someday, the United States space agency might use a special solar-powered drone to explore some pockets of the planet that land rovers can’t reach.

Scientist Matthew Golombek from NASA has told the news agency that Mars has a thin atmosphere, but there’s enough atmosphere to fly a drone there.

Apparently, the challenge is remote controlling a drone on another planet located more than 200 million kilometers away.

This thing weighs two pounds and NASA scientists will equip it with cameras - however, it will not fly on Mars by 2020 because the space agency chose other instruments for the 2020 mission. 

The rover is still in the early design stages. Scientists have been testing this rover companion using the JPL’s vacuum chamber that mimics the Martian environment. On Mars, the drone’s blades must spin at about 2400 rpm to provide lift. Source: StGist

 

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