A NASA image showing a kind of door carved into the rock, on Mars, It generated a stir on social networks and sparked conspiracy theories that there could be life on that planet.
However, the geologists presented a scientific explanation for this mysterious tunnel before the different versions that caused this photo taken by the Curiosity, that carries almost a decade of circulation on the surface of Mars and explores its territory. Specialists said that may have formed naturallyas reported by the newspaper ABC.
On that planet they are common “martemotos”, as the earthquakes that occur there are called. “The last one occurred on May 4 of this year and, despite the fact that the exact location is unknown, it is very possible that it was the cause of said door, since the image was recorded days later, specifically on May 7. ”, they specified in ABC.
For their part, NASA scientists said that the explanation of the “door” of Mars is within the photograph itself if you look at it in detail. This record shows evidence that this cave was formed through “normal geological processes”, Professor Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College London explained to The Daily Telegraph.
“The crack is a fracture and they abound on Mars and on Earth”, said even Gupta, who worked on the Curiosity mission with NASA. The professor specified that inside this cave there is evidence of a “deep crack or fissure” in the rock, which could have occurred at any time in the last few hundred million years.
on the british channel Sky Newswhere they echoed those statements, specified that “the door” would be a “shear fracture” that is, the earthquakes probably caused stress in the rock, causing it to break and part of it to fall off.
On the other hand, it would also come into play the perspectivesince there is a lot zoom in this shot. “Scientists on the team underlined how small the crack is: approximately 30 centimeters by 45a NASA spokesperson told Snopesa data verification website.
That medium also insisted that NASA was sure that the “door” was only a small crack in the rock.