Have You Heard About the "Door" on Mars?
It could be nothing, or perhaps it might be something
Hiya!
First, I accidentally scheduled Curious Life to go out on Sunday instead of Monday, silly me. So, please accept my apologies for any typos or mistakes you may have found. Thank you. :-)
Now on to go the good stuff.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about Mars. I know I promised to keep you informed about what’s going on up there, but to be honest, I haven’t seen anything worth writing about.
But lately, I’ve seen headlines talking about a new potentially intriguing find by the Curiosity rover. I’m sure you’ve seen them too. A door, or at least something that resembles a door, carved into a rock side on Mars. So, what do you think it is? Something, or nothing? Let’s explore.
In Case You Missed It
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to fill you in. Back in 2011, NASA sent the Curiosity Rover to explore the surface of Mars, where it landed almost a year later. It’s about the size of a small SUV equipped to record sounds and visuals, both photo and video. Curiosity also has arms to collect samples and antennas for communication, including speaking.
Earlier this month, on May 5th, Curiosity sent 113 images stitched together to reveal a panorama of an area named Mount Sharp. Once NASA zoomed in on the image, they found what looked like a doorway carved into the side of a rock. I’ve included images provided by NASA of both the panorama and a close-up of the door below.
A couple of weeks later, NASA published a blog post about the finding. After analyzing the image, NASA experts concluded that the door is about the size of a dog door — about 12 inches tall and 16 inches wide.
So, what made it?
It Could Be Nothing
NASA’s blog post states:
“The mound, on Mount Sharp, has a number of naturally occurring open fractures. […] These kinds of open fractures are common in bedrock, both on Earth and on Mars.”
No other explanation was provided in the blog post about what may have caused this opening. Though a project scientist in the Mars Science Laboratory, Ashwin Vasavada, offered more insight in a report published by Gizmodo.
Vasavada says the photographed area was made by ancient sand dunes which formed sandstone outcroppings over time, and the “door” is probably just a small fracture. He stated,
“I think what we have here [is] either two vertical fractures, where the middle piece has been removed, or one vertical fracture, and the blocks have moved apart a little bit.”
It should also be noted that this “door” isn’t the only unusual find by rovers on Mars. Last year, a photo taken by a Chinese rover showed what looked like a cube-shaped structure in the distance. Consiperisy theories flew around the world about various possibilities it could be. But once the rover got closer, it turned out to be nothing more than a large, regular boulder.
And don’t forget about the infamous “Face on Mars,” first noticed in 1976 and inspired imaginative origin stories for decades before it was revealed to be nothing more than an optical illusion — a mixture of terrain and sunlight tricking our brains into thinking it’s a giant head.
So, perhaps this “door” is nothing more than another optical illusion. When humans want something or care about something, our brain can trick us into seeing images or patterns that aren’t really there. Maybe we’ve been thinking and dreaming about Mars for so long and desperately want to find any signs of life that our minds make connections that aren’t there.
If Curiosity got closer or from a different angle, it’s possible the “door” no longer looks like a door. Kinda like the Cube that turned out to be a boulder. Vasavada could be right that the shape is purely an accident caused by fractures in the sandstone. And maybe the “door” is only a foot or so deep instead of some kind of entrance.
Or…
Could it Be Something?
Given the information we currently have, the edges of the door appear straighter than they should be. As you probably know, straight lines are relatively rare in nature, and I gotta say, from the image provided, the edges of the “door” look remarkably straight. Even the top of the “doorway” appears to have close to 90-degree angles.
Vasavada is very correct that fractures within sandstone are common. Both water and wind erode sandstone and create caves or caverns, but not usually ones as straight as this. While we haven’t found water on Mars yet, we do know it has lots of wind. But still, if you zoom in on the panorama, no other fracture has even a single straight line — let alone three. Not just the physical “door” either, but it looks like the whole wall near the entrance is smooth.
Also, we should be careful not to dismiss the “door” just because it’s small. If Maritan aliens exist, who's to say the door isn’t the perfect size for them. I mean, if they are small, perhaps it would be easy for them to live beneath the surface. Maybe they moved there when their atmosphere disappeared. The point is, we shouldn’t completely write anything off until we know more.
Perspective Shift
In the end, we’ll have to wait a little bit longer before we know for sure what this “doorway” is. Mars has arguably captured the human imagination the most of all the planets in our solar system.
We’ve written stories and made movies about little green Martian aliens and dream up what we’d do if we were to ever be contacted by alien life, alone if we discover life on Mars.
Now we’re potentially less than a decade away from human feet touching Martian ground for the first time ever. Until then, we’ll continue to explore the planet remotely and hopefully get a better image of this doorway to know for sure what it is. After all, as we know, it only takes one moment to change everything.
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