Back on August 20, 2023, NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover did Gale’s photo is a picture of a strange object, resembling a jellyfish with a black dome and spindly tentacles, or a tripod from Mars in HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. Three years later, the image suddenly went viral on social networks, and users began debating the most incredible explanations. Mars rovers have brought us images of strange rocks before, but that’s rarely the case with strange objects hovering in the thin Martian air.
Image source: NASA
In fact, various artifacts in the images of Curiosity and Perseverance are a common and understandable phenomenon. In particular, the CCD matrix used in Curiosity’s navigation camera is exposed to high-energy particles from space. When they enter the sensor, they can leave a variety of artifacts on the image – from single dots to spots and streaks.
The most likely cause of artifacts is the impact of high-energy charged particles on the camera’s sensor. Mars has no global magnetic field and its atmosphere is only about 0.5% of Earth’s mass. Therefore, the surface of the Red Planet is much less protected from energetic particles in space than the surface of Earth.
Similar artifacts appear frequently in Curiosity images. As early as 2014, NASA imaging systems expert Justin Markey said that among the thousands of photos received from the Mars rover, he encountered images with strange bright spots almost every week. Typically, traces of cosmic particles appear as white dots, flecks or streaks, but dark artifacts can also be found. For example, in a video captured by the Hazcam Curiosity camera in 2023, NASA noticed a small black artifact caused by cosmic particles hitting the sensor.
There’s good reason to believe something similar happened to Martian “jellyfish.” This mysterious image was taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on August 20, 2023 at 22:27:46 UTC. The same camera captured the exact same scene 13 seconds and 25 seconds earlier, but there is no sign of the “jellyfish” in either of the first two frames.
However, it’s not yet possible to unequivocally attribute specific “jellyfish” to cosmic particles. Without analysis by the Curiosity team, it would have been impossible to rule out other camera or image processing artifacts. However, the fact that the strange object appeared in only one of several consecutive images strongly suggests that the jellyfish originated within the imaging system rather than floating above the Martian surface.
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