NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps 2 Boulders Shaped Like Shark Fin, Crab Claw on Mars

NASA released a new photo from the Perseverance rover. The snap is reportedly the latest example of a phenomenon known as pareidolia.

NASA's Perseverance Rover Spots Crab Claw, Shark Fin on Mars

The US space agency released the most recent finding made by the Mars rover. It captured two separate stones resembling a shark fin and a crab claw.

Some jokingly claimed that the crab-shaped rock was the 'Almighty Great Cosmic Crab's' skeletal remnants. Others joked that the shark fin might be the "back plates" of a Stegosaurus, while others claimed the "claw" resembled a coffee bean or the skull of a turtle "digging a hole for its eggs."

The photographs taken last month are the most recent instance of a condition known as pareidolia, in which the brain invents a meaning to explain what the eyes see.

This most notably occurred with Mars in 1976 when NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft photographed what seemed to be a face cut into the Red Planet's surface. It was made plain by the US space agency when it made the image public that it was an illusion brought on by shadows, but that didn't stop some people from asserting that the face was the creation of an extraterrestrial species.

NASA didn't attempt to quell this frenzied conjecture until 20 years later. Images of the "Face on Mars" taken in 1998 by the agency's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) were ten times crisper than those taken by Viking 1 and showed it to be a far more natural-looking rocky outcrop. But not everyone was convinced about it.

Some conspiracy theorists insisted that the photographs were covered by haze, but NASA finally disproved this in 2001 by demonstrating that it was a butte, or mesa, a common geological formation that also exists on Earth.

Jim Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, noted that they took pictures of the Face as soon as they could obtain a good angle. It reportedly reminded him of Middle Butte in Idaho's Snake River Plain. The lava dome resembles a solitary mesa almost the same height as the Face on Mars.

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What Is Pareidolia?

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to see or hear vague or random images or sounds to explain what they observe. The word is derived from the Greek words "para," meaning something wrong or faulty, and "eidōlon," which means image, shape, or form.

In layperson's terms, it is seeing patterns in seemingly random data. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia that has a broader definition. The crab claw and shark fin aren't the only items many thought were found on Mars.

Earlier this year, NASA published images of a donut-shaped rock and a stone that resembled a bone. Perseverance's fellow Mars rover Curiosity also captured a shadowy structure in a rock face that some people thought was a "doorway."

After discovering it was only a few inches wide and tall, NASA quickly disproved that theory. Meanwhile, geologists believed it most likely resulted from multiple straight-line fractures in the rock co-occurring.