A strange artifact that looks like a cannonball or a billiard ball was recently photographed by the Martian robot "Curiosity"
The ball hits the lens of the left-hand pole-mounted camera (Mastcam: Left) on September 9, 2014. For the robot "Curiosity" (Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity) this is 746 - Martian - day on a neighboring planet.
This is what the ball looks like at close range.
Experts are divided over the size of the object. Some believe that it is small - about 1 centimeter in diameter. That is, it resembles a ball from a bearing. Others - which is much larger: about 10-15 centimeters. What makes the find akin to a cannonball or a billiard ball. But everyone notes: the surface of the object is very smooth, as if processed. And the shape is perfectly spherical.
If you do not fantasize that the Martians dropped the ball and they once made it for some of their Martian needs, then there is only one reasonable explanation: an object of natural origin. That is, he somehow appeared himself.
On Earth, such a ball - large or small - would not cause much amazement. Similar come across. Some geologists consider them ferruginous nodules - objects that are formed when sediments are compacted in coal deposits. In the center of nodules, organic remains, mineral or bacterial accumulations are often found, which serve as a "seed" for its growth.
Some scientists emphasize that the nodule becomes spherical and grows evenly when substances are deposited in a rock that is equally permeable in all directions. And the ocean floor is called the ancestral home of the earth. Like, they formed around the remains of shells, animal bones, algae in soft sediments. And they were on land when the seabed rose. Or the ocean has dried up.
According to another hypothesis, balls are formed as a result of crystallization of volcanic magma.
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Another assumption is that the balls are formed by some kind of foreign substance - for example, clay, filling spherical voids in bubbling lava. Such voids are analogous to holes in Swiss cheese. The balls come to the surface as a result of banal weathering.
But what process led to the formation of the Martian ball? It would be worth cutting it up to understand. Suddenly there are organic remains inside, for the sake of which the entire expensive expedition was organized.
By the way, the scattering of strange balls - very small, though - was photographed by the predecessor of Curiosity, the robot Opportunity. It was 10 years ago. But NASA was not interested in them. Yes, and the current find did not inspire.
Small balls taken on Mars 10 years ago
Earth balls.
Whose egg?
The egg-like object was photographed by Curiosity on May 16, 2014. The camera is the same - on the barbell, but the right one. The virtual archaeologist who discovered the egg in the image from Mars believes that it is petrified, and used to belong to a local dinosaur.
But maybe this is also a nodule - not spherical, but ovoid?
Martian egg.