HOUSTON, Texas (PNN) - January 4, 2013 - NASA has released a series of new photos taken by its Curiosity rover that appear to show a “flower” on the surface of Mars.
NBCNews.com’s photo blog reports that the photos were taken as part of an effort to capture 360-degree images during Curiosity’s trek through Mars’ Yellowknife Bay.
New Jersey-based journalist and photographer Ken Kramer has assembled the Curiosity photographs, adding color to give a realistic view of what the rover is seeing on the planet’s surface.
But what has really caught people’s attention is a raw image from NASA’s photo feed that has been called a “Martian flower”.
NBC’s Alan Boyle writes that he at first assumed the “flower” was actually just a piece of plastic that had fallen off the Curiosity rover. A similar event happened in October. So Boyle reached out to NASA spokesman Guy Webster. Interestingly, Webster shot down the plastic theory, saying in response, "That appears to be part of the rock, not debris from the spacecraft."
On Wednesday, scientists announced that an ancient rock that traveled from Mars to Earth over 2 billion years ago appears to have interacted with water on the planet’s surface.
