Flying ants and UFOs on Mars - the dust on the lens of the Perseverance rover has spawned many conspiracy theories
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has published new photos taken by the Perseverance rover. The photos spawned many conspiracy theories. But not for long.
Here's What We Know
On November 27, at an interval of 11 minutes, the Mars rover's navigation camera took two photos. Each image features an unidentified black flying object. Reddit users immediately began to theorize that Perseverance had captured a UFO on Mars. There were even more absurd hypotheses. For example, that the unidentified object is a flying ant.
Unfortunately or fortunately, there were no UFOs in wide view on Mars. Unidentified flying object on the Red Planet turned out to be a speck, which has got on the lens of the rover's camera. About this reported Justin Maki (Justin Maki) from NASA. Specialist in imaging noted that all sensors are subject to this problem, but artifacts are often visible only in the case of filming the sky.
Almost two months ago, the rover Curiosity, which also roams the expanse of Mars, sent a picture (above) with a similar defect. Space agency specialists are aware of the problem, so the photos often go through an editing process before publication, but this time something went wrong.