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Most of the Mars views we've seen come from NASA's faithful rovers. They showed us amazing images, but you can almost always say immediately that you're looking at a picture of Mars when you see one. The sky is almost always orange and the landscape is swept by the wind and devoid of recognizable features.
One of the last images returned by the Curiosity rover eliminates this problem by showing us a bed of pebbles that would look like sitting along a riverbed right here on Earth.
"NASA's Mars robot, Curiosity, acquired this image using its Mars Imager Hand Imager (MAHLI) imager, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm," says NASA. The image was captured on March 24th.
There are two interesting things to note about this photo. First, the tiny rocks are an off-white rather than a rusty orange daring, like many other images of the surface of the planet. The terrain of Mars presents many color variations and we rarely have the opportunity to see this closely, as we can here.
Secondly, you will notice a small gray ball mixed with pink and oblong pebbles. In the past, strange shapes, perfectly spherical, led some to wonder if we could see the remains of an ancient civilization – perhaps even projectiles used in ancient conflicts.
NASA assures us all that this is not the case and that these "blueberries", as they are sometimes called, are the result of a natural phenomenon called concretion. This happens when minerals begin to congregate in rocks soaked in water and then harden. When the softer outer part of the rock erodes due to wind or other natural processes, the harder spheres in the interior become freer and erode much more slowly.
It's a very cool picture and it reminds us that despite the incredible distance that separates them, Mars and Earth are actually very similar.
Image Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
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