A Mars Rock to get Excited about , Curiosity Rover Discovers Stick-Like Figures in Mars Rock

Left behind by indigenous tribes.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

I do see some marbles between those rocks , and as what looks like silicium or something that looks like it

Looks like twisted metal, like lead once used for raised letters on a sign that dissolved away leaving the letters. Who knows without the human touch in exploration.



a reply to: gortex

Cool!! It's Martian Writing!!! You can tell by the right angles!


Naw... Just kidding.

Looks like some kind of mineral or a neat erosion on soft rock vs hard rock. I like hard rock! It rocks!

I seriously doubt it's Ordovician trace fossils. It's more square and angled than wormy.

I say mineral. Final answer!

a reply to: StallionDuck

I found a raw image for you folx

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
All the discussion of the worm-like thingies and no one noticed that corroded nickel laying between the rocks!

That "pipe" i was seeing looks like metal with some copper in it too. Perhaps a copper zinc allow as it has a zinc oxide look to my eyes. The one on the top left looks like copper is on the end that "could be" a connector. I see a parallel set of lines are visible. That helps me to think pipe and both are bent at the same spot giving a man made look to the scene.

originally posted by: StallionDuck
a reply to: StallionDuck

I found a raw image for you folx

The rock across from the one the artifacts are looks like a continuation of the line, keeping "pipes" as a "possibility".

a reply to: gortex

Very cool. Just a thought, Why are ANY cameras on the rovers only black and white that they needed to swing back and use the expensive and rare technicolor camera?

the image suggests....

fossilized roots, at one time growing in a sandstone medium (probably shallow water plant life)
the wind erosion stripped away the sandstone in which the roots were once embedded & left those tube like structures unprotected to break up into smaller chunks in the corrosive Mars sand-storms

as for what kind of mineral was concentrated in the plant 'roots', that is a good question as no type of Earth plant strains out a mineral that would fossilize their root system...

(this kind of reminds me of some dinosaur fossils, where for decades the fossils in the dino stomach was just considered refuse and only recently were some dino's & birds stomach debris met with careful study)

which tells us that ancient root systems were likely encased in the soil or strata but we did not recognize the root fragments as being there to be analyzed or even discovered...until this Mars find


ETA: lets expand the possibilities & add 'sand-worms' to the list of fossilized aquatic plant roots

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: NeoSpace
It looks like fossilized cat poop.

You beat me to it

Me too! First thing that came to my mind.

a reply to: St Udio

Very possible too. Do roots normally fossilize, I am not sure? They would leave ruts like those we see in the pic.

But when you look at rock on Earth it usually will be veins of ore that leave trails like that in the rock.

Some examples of trace fossils found on Earth with fig B & C being ones of note.

sp.lyellcollection.org...
Not sayin it's Aliens but ....

Thanks for posting, OP! And I think this is a good thread for a reminder about the Viking 1 and 2 robots that NASA sent to Mars in 1976.

In 1976 NASA sent two space probes, Vikings 1 and 2, to Mars to determine whether life exists on the red planet. The probes carried three experiments specially designed for the task, one of which was called the Labeled Release (LR) apparatus.

Seems they may have found something very, very interesting back then:

Now, after running Viking's LR data through a mathematical test designed to separate biological signals from nonbiological signals, Miller's team believes that the LR experiments did indeed find signs of microbial life in Martian soil.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

A lot more information about the findings can be found on Dr. Gilbert V. Levine's website:
www.gillevin.com...

Personally I absolutely believe Dr. Levine and his team found signs of life on Mars in 1976, and maybe some day a Martian microbe will be named after him. I hope so, the man has fought uphill for a long time to get his findings aknowledged by NASA and the scientific community.

originally posted by: gortex
Some examples of trace fossils found on Earth with fig B & C being ones of note.

sp.lyellcollection.org...
Not sayin it's Aliens but ....

F also. I see some similarities to pipe here also so parent materials are going to play a role, obviously. But metallic verses looking like the parent material is what I notice in these fossil pics. I am thinking black and white but it is a distraction to not see the true color of the fossil.

originally posted by: StallionDuck
a reply to: StallionDuck

I found a raw image for you folx

Thank you for the full pic. My wife and I had a thought. Is it possible that this is a crash site of one of the probes lost over the years. The metal parts melted, landed here than cooled?

originally posted by: MikeA

originally posted by: StallionDuck
a reply to: StallionDuck

I found a raw image for you folx

Thank you for the full pic. My wife and I had a thought. Is it possible that this is a crash site of one of the probes lost over the years. The metal parts melted, landed here than cooled?

Interesting thought, but the probes have all been constructed to survive any friction heat during their launches, travels and descends, so I am not sure why any of them would melt upon landing.

And I doubt the temperatures on Mars itself could melt a probe (or parts of them):

On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 degrees Celsius). In winter, near the poles temperatures can get down to minus 195 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C). A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night the temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 C).

www.space.com...

a reply to: MikeA

Is it possible that this is a crash site of one of the probes lost over the years.

Curiosity rover is at Gale Crater which is a clean site , Gale did have a lot of water in the distant past in the form of a lake which makes the possibility of life being their good if it existed on Mars , which is why this find is so interesting.

Man. this part really does look like a flattened lead tube -

One slightly does resemble a stick figure, top left corner one-running, squatting, etc. Rather it does seem more like fossils, nice find shard earlier in comparison. Rather than cat #, I mean Almond Rocas.

a reply to: NeoSpace

Fossilized cat poop would prove that cats were originally living on Mars before they travelled to Earth and conquered humanity. It explains everything!