NASA's Perseverance Rover Spots a Martian "Avocado" Rock
The Mars Perseverance rover continues to amaze with its remarkable findings on the Red Planet. In its most recent discovery, the rover captured an image of a rock on Mars that strikingly resembles a halved avocado, complete with a pit.
Taken on September 8 in the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is diligently searching for signs of ancient life, this curious snapshot adds to the rover's growing collection of rocks that resemble familiar objects.
The image showcases one side of the "avocado" lying face down, while the other reveals what appears to be a distinct pit in the center, mirroring the texture of an avocado peel. The rock's uncanny resemblance is captured through Perseverance's Mastcam-Z camera.
These unique rock formations are a testament to pareidolia, a phenomenon where the human brain perceives familiar patterns in random visual data. The rover's previous discoveries include rocks resembling sharks' fins, crab claws, and even a donut-shaped rock with a hole in the center.