Curiosity spots a spoon on Mars!
Very cool image time! In one of Curiosity’s recent images of the Martian surface on the slopes of Mount Sharp appears what looks like a long thin spoon jutting horizontally out of the ground.
The shadow below the feature is strong evidence that that this almost certainly a real object, shaped exactly as we see it. However, it is not an artificially created spoon. If you look at both the full raw image as well as zoom in on the feature itself, you will see that it is something that formed naturally due to Mars’ low gravity and the geology here. The spoon is a thin prong of harder material that has remained intact as the ground below it has been slowly eroded away by the ever-present but very weak Martian wind. If you look close you can see that harder material extend back into the rock behind the spoon.
Some of that erosion might also have been caused by flowing water sometime in the past, but to confirm this will take additional geological research.
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Very cool image time! In one of Curiosity’s recent images of the Martian surface on the slopes of Mount Sharp appears what looks like a long thin spoon jutting horizontally out of the ground.
The shadow below the feature is strong evidence that that this almost certainly a real object, shaped exactly as we see it. However, it is not an artificially created spoon. If you look at both the full raw image as well as zoom in on the feature itself, you will see that it is something that formed naturally due to Mars’ low gravity and the geology here. The spoon is a thin prong of harder material that has remained intact as the ground below it has been slowly eroded away by the ever-present but very weak Martian wind. If you look close you can see that harder material extend back into the rock behind the spoon.
Some of that erosion might also have been caused by flowing water sometime in the past, but to confirm this will take additional geological research.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
If you look further right, on the full image, there is a spatula sticking out too. As well as another undercut projection of stone, with multiple holes in it, lower down in the image.
Forget the spoon. I wanna know if there is any gold mixed in with what looks like a vein of quartz!
Hmm. Kitchen utensils on Mars. Sounds like we need an archaeologist and an anthropologist to let us know what the people of Mars lived like. Next thing you know, we will be finding chickens running around the place. ;-)
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/new-sharp-images-of-ceres-from-dawn/#comment-792976
Space chickens, I wonder if they taste like earth chickens?
Need scale indicator with shots like these. Doesn’t Curiosity at least have a quarter? I believe your field is in Geology – a coin or ruler or something! You know what I mean.