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January 22, 2014 10:00 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

Mars RockMy money is on an extraterrestrial playing head games with the primitive humans, but Earth scientists have a couple of plausible theories:

Scientists are stumped as to how a rock mysteriously appeared in images of the same spot taken two weeks apart by Nasa’s Mars rover Opportunity.

The rover, which landed in an area known as Meridiani Planum a decade ago, is exploring the rim of a crater for signs of past water.

On January 8, while preparing to use its robotic arm for science investigation, Opportunity sent back a picture of its work area.

It showed a bright white rock, about the size of a doughnut, where only barren bedrock had appeared in a picture it had sent back two weeks earlier. Scientists suspect the rock was flipped over by one of the rover’s wheels.

It also may have been deposited after a meteorite landed nearby.

Either way, the rock, dubbed “Pinnacle Island”, is providing an unexpected science bonus.

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.