Perseverance Rover Takes a Closer Look at Snake Head Rock's Balancing Boulder

On the 15th of this month I posted about a curious balancing boulder imaged by Perseverance rover at Snake-head rock , It seems the chaps at NASA were curios too and sent Percy to go get a closer look , on Sunday they imaged the balancing rock again ... but closer and from a different angle.


But I wanted to get even closer.


And then closerer


Not sure if it's a rock or a pot now !


I suppose the logical answer is that the smaller rock is a part of the bigger rock and erosion has created the anomaly but could it be the site is actually a Snake temple and the rock is really a pot left there for religious purposes by the Martians ... Ancient Astronaut Theorists say Yes.

Whatever it is and however it got there it is a curious thing.

mars.nasa.gov...

a reply to: gortex

is it me or did the one on top move from one image to the other?

in your first thread you linked to the one on top is more towards the middle where the indentation is on the big one, not only that it has moved up hill.

see arrow,



in this thread it appears to be sitting on the point,

see arrow,



something ain't right, or the martians are blankin with us.

a reply to: BernnieJGato

Curiouser and curiouser

a reply to: gortex

sure is, or the laws of physics are different on mars, i could see maybe slightly but that much.


First Rule: An object will remain at rest or in a uniform state of motion unless that state is changed by an external force.

Second Rule: Force is equal to the change in momentum (mass times velocity) over time. In other words, the rate of change is directly proportional to the amount of force applied.

Third Rule: For every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Hmm, strange.. looks like fabric like a pillow slumbed over the top of the cliff

a reply to: BernnieJGato

I've been looking at both pictures since you posted them together and it is a headscratcher , the perspective change doesn't seem that much to cause the difference , perhaps someone will explain it because it's beyond me.

Although it is a Temple site so it could be Magic .... or a creature.

a reply to: gortex

true the perspective is not enough to change the view of where it was at. then there's the fact that if i'm reading both links right it's only been a little over a month apart.

Perhaps the thing on top was color corrected to blend in.
What if it looked like this:

a reply to: BernnieJGato

If you zoom in real close it looks like a turtles head with neck stretched above the main rock ----- i don't think the rock moved its just the angle .

a reply to: BernnieJGato

I think the angle is almost 90 degrees between the two images.

The first, let's call it the south view, the second is taken from the west. Look at the scraggy rock below, the first image has it to the left, whereas the second image has it towards the right... at least that's how I'm seeing it.

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
is it me or did the one on top move from one image to the other?

Seriously well spotted Bernnie-That rock looks like it has moved uphill.
Could martain wind do that?
Or maybe seismic activity?

You should tell NASA about it and see if they have a theory.

a reply to: Encia22

the angle hasn't changed enough to change the perspective of the point of the big rock.

it's as plain as day and the little one fairly good distance away from the point in the first image. the little one is actually sitting on it in the second image were as in the first one it is not. if it was in the first you wouldn't be able to see the point.

and if you look at the close up ravenwatcher posted you can see what looks like a shadow and cup shape on the bottom.
then if you look at the bottom of the little one in in gortex's first thread image, it's just a small section of the rock seen sitting on the crack / indention of the big one and on the one i posted it looks like it is sitting flat on the point

it could be but i don't think the perspective has changed enough to make it look that way because of the point on the big one, and the crack indentation is now to the right instead of under it.

a reply to: gortex

Probably not, but I wonder if maybe it was once some sort of plant material that was lifted atop the rock by the wind, and got stuck long long ago, and has since been petrified.

a reply to: BrokenCircles

More inclined to go with Silicone based life form nibbling rocks myself.

a reply to: Encia22

here they are side by side, not a whole lot of difference in perspective, there is some but it's close enough to tell that the little one on top has moved.



here in this one i tried to overlay the one from this thread ( on top and lighter) to Gortex's first thread on bottom with the most common rock in both



here are the originals,

first thread,



this thread

a reply to: gortex

It's very odd, some strange geometry could explain the apparent movement, but I'm not sure what would be easier to explain that geometry or the movement....

In the old pic it's like looking up checking out the rover, in the recent pics its like, nomnom what a tasty rock

a reply to: BernnieJGato

Questions will be asked in The Film Studio Continuity Department.

Someone is going to get a bollocking.

It has obviously moved. In the first pic you can see the tip / peak / edge of the the larger rock.

In the second pic you can’t.

Rock snail.

a reply to: alldaylong

the air brush broke

a reply to: BernnieJGato

The difference in angle appears to be almost 9'0º, and we have to remember that the top of the rock is not flat and the small rock is not a perfect sphere, so in one photo we see parts of both rocks that we do not see on the other photo and vice versa.

In the first photo we can see that that sharp peak on the bigger rock is on the left of the small rock, while in this thread's photo the peak is in front of the small rock.

A couple animations help to show what I'm saying.

Sol 466


Sol 507


Also, we can see that the veins on the small rock appear to be in the same place in both photos, the rock didn't move, only the camera(s).

Edited to add that what I mean in the above paragraph is that we can see on the first photo that the vein that crosses the small rock more or less at half the height is in the same place but the sides of the rock are different, so the vein keeps going around the rock almost horizontally in both photos, but the size and shape of the sides changes because of the different perspective.
It's easier to think about an explanation than writing it.