In a new photo from Mars, they noticed a strange object that the web mistook for a UFO

Miscellaneous / by admin / April 05, 2023

Everything turned out to be much more prosaic.

A photo from the Perseverance rover has again become a source of conspiracy theories on the Web. In one of the latest shots of the rocky landscape of Mars, a strange object was seen in the sky. On Reddit, users started tell jokesthat it's an ant, a UFO, or just a flying plastic bag.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

All hypotheses had to be stopped by NASA specialist Justin Mackie, who explained the appearance of a strange detail in the frame as a simple artifact:

They are caused by microscopic pieces of debris on the sensor. Most or all sensors have such artifacts. They are usually only noticeable when the camera is capturing an image of the sky or a flat radiometric surface.

In other words, there was no object in the sky above Mars. This is confirmed by another frame from the Perseverance navigation camera, received on the same day, November 27th. The photo shows a completely different landscape, but the artifact is still in the same place.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Also, a similar mote was seen in an earlier photo of Gale Crater. The shot was taken in early October.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The problem of such artifacts is not new. Usually, pictures are processed before being published on the Web, where all such details are removed. However, some of the frames leave in an unedited form, which gives rise to some theories about mysterious objects.