[HN Gopher] Strange plant-like formation captured by Curiosity r...
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       Strange plant-like formation captured by Curiosity rover on Mars
        
       Author : dvh
       Score  : 274 points
       Date   : 2022-02-26 08:13 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mars.nasa.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mars.nasa.gov)
        
       | jessaustin wrote:
       | I wish this picture came with a scale. Is this formation a
       | millimeter wide or a meter wide?
        
         | guessmyname wrote:
         | > _I wish this picture came with a scale. Is this formation a
         | millimeter wide or a meter wide?_
         | 
         | A few millimetres, according to this Twitter post:
         | https://mobile.twitter.com/abbyfrae/status/14973756989855211...
        
           | jessaustin wrote:
           | People on HN downvote twitter posts, but that is _much_ more
           | informative than the raw picture. Given that pennies are 19mm
           | in diameter, that suggests a width more like ~12mm for this
           | object.
        
       | aniijbod wrote:
       | They'll be here soon, Ziggy.
        
       | jansan wrote:
       | On Twitter someone said that it looks like the result of
       | lightning striking sand. I did not know that this would create
       | such awesome structures. Look up "lightning sand" if you never
       | heard about it.
       | 
       | I think those are called Fulgurites:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite
        
         | ivan_gammel wrote:
         | Lightnings seem to be rare on Mars. If this one was caused by
         | it, what are the chances it would have been discovered?
         | 
         | https://www.space.com/mars-lightning-weak-thin-atmosphere.ht...
        
           | chmod775 wrote:
           | Considering it's a mostly barren landscape with little that
           | could wear down and prevent accumulation of such things,
           | chances are pretty good.
           | 
           | Mars isn't quite the Moon, where you could drop a marble and
           | expect to find it in exactly the same condition 10,000 years
           | later, but it's not quite Earth either.
           | 
           | There's no organisms that will cover and break down anything
           | you throw at them within weeks, obviously there's no rain
           | that could cause erosion, wind speeds are about the same
           | you'd see on earth, but atmospheric pressure is only about
           | 1/150th.
        
             | RugnirViking wrote:
             | 1/150th? puts into perspective how incredible it is to get
             | anything to fly there (like the Ingenuity helicopter
             | recently)
        
         | peterburkimsher wrote:
         | Let's analyse the chemical composition.
         | 
         | If it's is made of fused quartz, it's likely to be a fulgurite.
         | 
         | If it's made of calcium carbonate, it's likely to be a coral.
         | 
         | If it's made of something else, that's even more exciting!
        
       | amiga1200 wrote:
       | The erosion though... how? To me that's amazing enough. So earth
       | like. Apologies, that's earthist of me.
        
       | Uily wrote:
       | This looks like it could have been caused by water penetrating a
       | softer substance, causing it to harden, and then the surrounding
       | material was removed by erosion.
        
         | senectus1 wrote:
         | still very cool but yeah I doubt its a biological.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | g5095 wrote:
       | Not saying this isn't plant-like but lightning can produce these
       | same shapes in sand.
        
       | earthboundkid wrote:
       | Space is unbelievably boring. It is so boring that it's a news
       | story when something in space reminds us of a thing on Earth.
       | Mars is dead, dead, dead; and it's depressing to even think about
       | how dead and boring it is.
        
         | Brian_K_White wrote:
         | Joins a conversation only to say they have no interest in it.
        
           | javajosh wrote:
           | The subject is Mars, not the conversation about Mars.
           | 
           | And GP's comment _is_ interesting. Consider that Earth, even
           | after nuclear war, comet strike, caldera explosion, destroyed
           | habitats, etc is _still_ infinitely more habitable than Mars.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Mars is definitely dead, and nothing there within current
             | human technical abilities to brink it back to life. Living
             | underground or in airtight capsules is the only way of
             | living on that planet. Which is pretty much the same thing
             | that would happen on Earth in any of those doomsday events
             | you suggested.
             | 
             | The main threat to earth is uninhabitable atmosphere, so if
             | we figured out how to reverse those changes, then perhaps
             | we could reverse Venus' atmosphere. If that were possible,
             | then we might actually have a second livable planet in our
             | solar system.
        
             | Brian_K_White wrote:
             | The post is about a curious discovery on Mars.
             | 
             | The commenter joined the conversation about that discovery
             | to say nothing other than that they don't find the topic
             | interesing.
             | 
             | There is no getting around the fundamental ignorance and
             | offensiveness of that.
             | 
             | My comment IS exactly about conversation not about Mars.
             | 
             | It's about the curious but not at all uncommon phenomenon
             | of joining a conversation for no other purpose but to tell
             | everyone in it that you are not interested in it.
             | 
             | My point is to point out that that is what they are doing
             | when they do that, not merely adding their own perfectly
             | valid opinion on a topic the same as anyone else's. It's
             | uniquely invalid and offensive.
             | 
             | It's walking down a hall, hearing a conversation behind one
             | of the doors, stopping, entering the room, and announcing
             | to everyone in that room "It's stupid to discuss this
             | topic".
             | 
             | Obviously, the ignoramus who does this doesn't realize that
             | this is what they are doing. Obviously they think they are
             | delivering a valuable observation and conclusion, or at
             | least expressing their opinion which they are entitled to
             | have and even to express.
             | 
             | The problem is the context. They were not already in a
             | conversation where something came up and their opinion was
             | relevant. They were not specifically asked for their
             | opinion like with a poll or an article that poses the
             | question. They went out of their way to join a conversation
             | in the first place for no other purpose than to say it's a
             | pointless conversation.
             | 
             | I am distilling their action to it's essense to expose just
             | what they are actually doing, and lay bare the lack of any
             | valid motivation for an action like that.
             | 
             | You are supposed to see this, and understandably try to
             | find a hole in it to save face, but then eventually when
             | there turns out to be no way to avoid the essential facts
             | after unpacking, realize that's what you're doing and maybe
             | do it less.
             | 
             | Or failing that (honestly, more likely, but at least they
             | no longer have the excuse of ignorance), at least maybe
             | some bystanders will be wiser to the phenomenon in the
             | future an be better able to recognize a tool for what they
             | are on first sight and not grant them the time of day by
             | bothering to get into any arguments with them. IE,
             | recognize that peculiar form of mental Turet's and thereby
             | feel no attack from it, and feel no need to defend against
             | it.
        
           | lima wrote:
           | Boring things can be interesting!
        
             | earthboundkid wrote:
             | Sure. :-)
        
         | JoshTko wrote:
         | Agreed. Not sure if a space colony on Mars is worth the ROI
         | from a scientific standpoint. Technologically we would learn a
         | lot about how to sustain multi-planetary life.
        
           | hownottowrite wrote:
           | I think the only thing we will prove with a Martian colony is
           | that humans can go extinct on two planets instead of one.
        
             | sixQuarks wrote:
             | Very pessimistic thinking. We might as well never try
             | anything. Always stay in our comfort zones
        
               | hownottowrite wrote:
               | Just because you can make air on another planet doesn't
               | mean you can live to breathe it.
               | 
               | If we can't get life right here, our technical ability
               | won't mean much on another planet once human nature takes
               | over.
        
               | aaronblohowiak wrote:
               | "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to
               | fish and you'll deplete the worlds fisheries in three
               | generations."
               | 
               | While that old saw has a bit of truth, the nice thing
               | about mars is that there is no ecology to disturb
        
               | hownottowrite wrote:
               | Subsistence isn't the actual threat to a Martian colony,
               | and that is what is so maddening about it. We can go and
               | we can figure out the technical hurdles. But even with
               | those magical capabilities we cannot eliminate ourselves
               | from the equation. The danger for a Martian colony will
               | not be from Mars, but from the "Martians" (just as it is
               | on Earth).
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | malux85 wrote:
         | "Boring" is subjective. I find interplanetary geology very
         | interesting.
         | 
         | You don't know that Mars is dead, and we are also looking for
         | previous signs of life.
         | 
         | I am excited about us learning about other planets, their
         | mineral composition, what technological advancements we must
         | make to create habitable environments for us, what robotic
         | advancements we must made to study and build remotely. What
         | protocol enhancements must be made to streamline high latency
         | communications.
         | 
         | And then later stage stuff, once functioning, self sustaining
         | civilisation is established, how is it governed? What are the
         | economics of trading in high latency scenarios? What's next
         | after Mars?
         | 
         | There's so many interesting things to discover and areas to be
         | excited about.
        
         | kushan2020 wrote:
         | It's because Mars is the best we have to add redundancy to the
         | human condition.
        
           | ncmncm wrote:
           | Except, it isn't. It is a desert at the deep bottom of a
           | gravity well far from the sun. We can build in solar orbit
           | much better than on Mars, and more sustainably.
        
         | Buttons840 wrote:
         | Indeed, all descriptions of how big space is can be followed
         | by, "and the most interesting part is right outside your
         | window, and in your own body and mind". As far as we know at
         | least.
         | 
         | I think of the words at the end of Battlestar Galactica, "so
         | much life". As far as we know, there are entire galaxies where
         | the most exciting and interesting thing you could hope to find
         | is some crystals. Then I look around our planet and can hardly
         | see a square inch that isn't covered in life.
         | 
         | I may never travel to other planets, and will certainly never
         | go to another galaxy, but at least I'm here, in the most
         | interesting part of the universe.
        
       | ChuckMcM wrote:
       | This is really neat, and oddly it makes me wish that there were
       | people walking around on Mars looking at these things, taking
       | samples, etc. And generally figuring things out in real time.
        
         | ssijak wrote:
         | Give it a decade or two.
        
           | can16358p wrote:
           | I'd say at least two for anything practical (having a settled
           | daily life in Mars). Once settled, it will be... very
           | interesting.
        
       | jacquesm wrote:
       | Reminiscent of certain kinds of sea sponges.
        
       | nomzta wrote:
       | Probably a rock or mineral deposit:
       | 
       | https://cosmiclog.com/2022/02/25/martian-flower-blooms-in-a-...
        
       | jonathanlb wrote:
       | While we speculate, I'm just marveled that we can get an image of
       | that clarity and crispness _from Mars_.
        
         | somenameforme wrote:
         | While I agree it's amazing and inspiring, I'd also emphasize
         | that we have pictures [1] and even sounds [2] from the surface
         | of Venus and it's 91 atmospheres of surface pressure alongside
         | 900F degree surface temperature. Those are from 40+ years ago.
         | 20 years before that, we'd never sent a single object into
         | space.
         | 
         | And so if you asked people from that time first consuming that
         | media what they imagine the world (in terms of space) would
         | look like 40 years later, us looking at somewhat higher
         | resolution pictures from Mars would sound skeptical to the
         | point of absurdity.
         | 
         | [1] - https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-
         | venus-...
         | 
         | [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jZDW53U8qQ
        
           | dkasper wrote:
           | Yeah, except now the pictures are beamed on demand to a magic
           | box in our pockets.
        
             | retrac wrote:
             | Well, it wasn't exactly on demand, but appropriately enough
             | the first handheld television was released in 1982, forty
             | years ago.
             | 
             | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Sony_wa
             | t...
        
               | thih9 wrote:
               | Perhaps "on demand" is relative; perhaps tomorrow's
               | platforms will have AIs that will generate relevant
               | content for you.
        
           | zxcvbn4038 wrote:
           | > from the surface of Venus and it's 91 atmospheres of
           | surface pressure alongside 900F degree surface temperature.
           | 
           | Why are people taking pictures of Chuck Norris's bathroom?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | TomSwirly wrote:
           | > And so if you asked people from that time first consuming
           | that media what they imagine the world (in terms of space)
           | would look like 40 years later, us looking at somewhat higher
           | resolution pictures from Mars would sound skeptical to the
           | point of absurdity.
           | 
           | As such a person, I do in fact concur. We really expected a
           | moon colony fairly soon, and by now, a thriving colony on
           | Mars.
           | 
           | We were wildly naive about how hard it was. To have a self-
           | sustaining colony on Mars, you would have to re-invent every
           | single piece of technology we use on Earth to work in an
           | environment of complete scarcity.
        
         | IceDane wrote:
         | It's absolutely nuts that I can be viewing a high definition
         | picture from another planet with my morning coffee. Sometimes I
         | wish we didn't lose our sense of awe so quickly. Every
         | technological miracle we create quickly becomes a normal part
         | of "every day life" so to speak.
        
           | iszomer wrote:
           | I imagine with tons of post-processing back on Earth.
           | 
           | Compare and contrast the Eagle Nebula from it's raw form
           | _enhanced_ with  "false colors".
        
           | gonzo41 wrote:
           | I was buying my morning coffee today and the person in front
           | of me paid with their watch. Things are pretty amazing, you
           | just got to keep looking for it.
        
             | IndrekR wrote:
             | I am still amazed that going out and buying a morning
             | coffee is a thing (that can seriously compete with home-
             | brewing it).
        
               | fs111 wrote:
               | I think people believe that you need complex/expensive
               | equipment for good coffee, but that's not true. Get
               | yourself a grinder and a chemex and be happy!
        
               | aljgz wrote:
               | I think the prevalence of people buying morning coffee is
               | a more complex phenomenon.
               | 
               | In Malaysia, you would see people complaining if their
               | Nasi Lemak costed more than RM 5, but the same person
               | would happily pay RM 15 for coffee. It appeared that
               | there was a norm at play, that Nasi Lemak belongs to
               | Malaysian streets and should be cheap, while coffee is a
               | western thing and it's normal to be expensive.
               | 
               | For some others, queuing up, the micro-interactions, and
               | drinking while walking to the office (or even back to
               | their home office) seems to be a morning ritual. I could
               | see myself in this group if I did not prefer my own blend
               | and brew.
        
               | wrycoder wrote:
               | Kopi Luwak with your Nasi Lemak, then?
        
               | toastal wrote:
               | Pour-over, single-origin coffee costs about 120Bh. in
               | Thailand, 3x street food as well. Cafes are often used
               | for setting for social media photos as much as the coffee
               | itself and they are popular--especially right after
               | lunch.
               | 
               | But with coffee being grown in the North coffee itself
               | isn't seen as "Western", and the older styles using
               | robusta beans--like kaaaefobraan, o`eliiyng, etc.--are
               | still sold for 20-30Bh. from street carts, while the
               | arabica espresso options with an 'experience' to it costs
               | way more.
        
               | teitoklien wrote:
               | Chemex usually is a bit harder to get a nice cup of
               | coffee consistently from,
               | 
               | A V60 pourover is usually much more better ( and easier
               | to clean and less chances of breaking too )
               | 
               | For me atleast V60 usually provides consistently better
               | coffee then a chemex brewed one and is also less effort.
        
               | flyinglizard wrote:
               | It's a fun ritual. I go with my wife to get a coffee in
               | the morning twice or three times a week. I pay with my
               | watch, and we sometimes talk about astronomy.
        
               | JackFr wrote:
               | On Saturday morning I go and buy a cup of coffee and sit
               | outside the shop and read the newspaper (physical paper)
               | and watch people walk by. It's really one of the
               | pleasures of my week.
               | 
               | (I then go home a brew a pot for me and my wife - who
               | prefers to sleep in on Saturdays.)
        
               | sbarre wrote:
               | That sounds wonderful. It's still bitterly cold where I
               | am in the world these days, and I look forward to also
               | doing that in a few months. :-)
        
               | borepop wrote:
               | There's nowhere left near me at all that sells the New
               | York Times, which was the paper I liked to read in
               | physical form. Used to be a fun weekend ritual to pick up
               | the Sunday edition from the coffee shop down the street
               | and sit around reading things and doing the crossword,
               | but I can't find it anymore. I'm not sure if it was covid
               | that killed off the distribution or just the economics of
               | print.
        
               | booleandilemma wrote:
        
               | Anthony-G wrote:
               | Making those assumptions about IndrekR isn't very fair.
               | Like him/her, I brew my own coffee (using locally
               | purchased beans) but I go out of my way to support local
               | businesses. I haven't bought anything from Amazon since
               | 2010 and the only online purchases I've made in the last
               | three years were FFP masks (I couldn't find a local
               | chemists who stocked them for some strange reason), RAM
               | chips and an SSD drive (the local PC shops are gone).
               | Having said that, I regretted paying EUR20 for a bicycle
               | chain from a local bike shop (who weren't particularly
               | pleasant to deal with) when I could have purchased the
               | same chain from an online retailer for EUR5.
        
           | colechristensen wrote:
           | One of the things motivating such progress is our ability to
           | normalize everything.
           | 
           | It's sweet how the simplest things bring babies joy, but we
           | wouldn't accomplish all that much if jingling keys fascinated
           | us our whole lives.
        
           | beamatronic wrote:
           | I'm looking forward to the first "reality tv" shows produced
           | on other planets (including the moon).
           | 
           | You can probably fund a moon colony just on tourism and
           | entertainment.
        
         | thanatos519 wrote:
         | It's also worth noting that this image was taken _yesterday_.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | I wonder what the data-rate is like (or rather, I'm too lazy
           | to look it up myself). The image is 1010K which with a 14.4
           | Kbit/s connection would take ~10 minutes to download from
           | Mars. 1 KBit/s would take ~2.5 hours.
        
             | giantrobot wrote:
             | NASA's Mars rovers use several orbital probes to relay
             | communications back to Earth. They _do_ have radios that
             | can talk directly to Earth up to 32kbps but primarily use
             | the relays. The UHF uplink to the Mars Recon Orbiter is up
             | to 2Mbps and it 's visible to the rover for about eight
             | minutes a day. The orbiter's uplink to Earth is can hit up
             | to 6Mbps.
             | 
             | The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have a fair amount of
             | on-board storage (for an interplanetary probe). So they can
             | spool a lot of data and then send a batch to the orbiters
             | and then go about their next tasks. The orbiters also have
             | a lot of storage (for interplanetary probes) and can
             | themselves spool a lot of data until they're in a transmit
             | window to Earth.
        
             | colechristensen wrote:
             | The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter gets 500 to 4000 kbps when
             | the planet isn't in the way.
             | 
             | https://mars.nasa.gov/mro/mission/communications/
        
       | theknocker wrote:
        
       | deknos wrote:
       | electrical charges could create something like that.
        
       | politician wrote:
       | NASA has been strategically ambiguous about the possibility of
       | life on Mars since Viking 1. What's changed now that they're
       | touting "plant-like formations"? That seems uncharacteristically
       | suggestive.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | yalogin wrote:
       | Interesting that it looks small yet is able to withstand the
       | winds and didn't get eroded. Wonder how strong it is. Does the
       | rover try to investigate it at all?
        
         | pharke wrote:
         | The wind force on Mars is not very strong, the surface
         | pressures is only 0.6% of Earth's and the top windspeed is
         | around 100 km/h or 62 mph.
        
           | somenameforme wrote:
           | As a fun factoid this is one of the few things that was
           | intentionally fudged in "The Martian." Andy Weir was well
           | aware that the most brutal sandstorm on Mars would feel like
           | a slight breeze, but felt it was one of the more interesting
           | ways to create a catastrophe. That in itself is really
           | phenomenally encouraging for the future developments on the
           | planet - when one of the things a hard sci-fi book has to
           | resort to fiction on is the trigger for catastrophe!
        
       | Symmetry wrote:
       | Could Mars have developed chemosynthtic life? Sure, it happened
       | ridiculously fast on Earth and I'm quite prepared to believe it
       | happened on Mars before it lost its liquid water.
       | 
       | Photosynthetic bacteria? That's a stretch but I could imagine it
       | happening.
       | 
       | Plants? Not just the prokaryotic to eukaryote transition but
       | differentiated multicellular organisms? No, it would take an
       | incredible amount of evidence to convince me that that happened
       | on Mars and this does no in any way count.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | lazerl0rd wrote:
       | My initial thoughts were "sand mushroom" and "sand seaweed".
        
       | ineedasername wrote:
       | I think what's more remarkable are the couple of snickerdoodle
       | cookies a few inches to the right of the plant-thing. Someone is
       | leaving a welcome basket with housewarming gifts for Curiousity.
       | I wonder what the coupons for local businesses will be.
        
       | Geee wrote:
       | It's clearly an alien hand reaching out of the ground.
        
         | iszomer wrote:
         | And if you touch it, your evil doppelganger will spawn.
         | 
         | (Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis reference fyi)
        
       | _AzMoo wrote:
       | I know nothing about this but I too would like to speculate.
       | 
       | It looks like coral.
        
         | acd wrote:
         | Also think it looks like a coral. I am a diver.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | mrfusion wrote:
       | Will they investigate more? Maybe drill into it or use some of
       | the other onboard instruments?
        
       | toolslive wrote:
       | just a desert rose?
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_rose_(crystal)
        
         | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
         | It doesn't really look like those though. Those look
         | crystalline and repeating.
        
           | slim wrote:
           | It's Mars. Cristal formations may take other forms. We still
           | can call it Mars rose :)
        
           | narag wrote:
           | This one:
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_habit#/media/File:Bari.
           | ..
           | 
           | After a long time of sanding down.
        
       | thebeardisred wrote:
       | Also looks vaguely like what happens when lightning melts sand.
       | My parents always called them a "desert rose".
       | (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_rose_(crystal))
       | 
       | Interesting to learn about other formations from @hownottowrite's
       | comment.
        
         | tectonic wrote:
         | Just a note, desert roses (as confirmed by your link), aren't
         | made by lightning.
        
           | tecleandor wrote:
           | A think parent might be referring to fulgurite.
           | 
           | https://www.sciencealert.com/lightning-strikes-can-create-
           | in...
        
       | dandare wrote:
       | I have always been fascinated by
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
        
       | dschuetz wrote:
       | It looks like an old mineral crystal. "Strange plant-like" sounds
       | very amateurish and does not reflect facts.
        
         | aliswe wrote:
         | Its not NASAs title, its OPs
        
         | Vox_Leone wrote:
         | Stalagmite-like formation would also be an accurate
         | description, without the hype. The abuse of bombastic
         | announcements like this one does a disservice to science in
         | general and the space exploration in particular. This gotta
         | stop.
        
           | dekhn wrote:
           | I thought it looked like coral.
        
           | gnabgib wrote:
           | There's no bombastic announcement, it's a link to an image
           | that op made an opinionated title for.
        
             | Vox_Leone wrote:
             | Plant-like is bombastic. Sorry.
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | It looks like a plant in my opinion, which doesn't mean it is
         | necessarily a plant but it means that its appearance is like a
         | plant. I don't see any inaccuracies in the description.
         | 
         | Of course if someone thinks that doesn't look like a plant but
         | crystal or an animal, they are fre to describe it as "crystal-
         | like" or "animal-like".
         | 
         | Its alright bo be impressed with its looks I guess, noone is
         | going to make a salad of it, so it is not dangerous to think
         | that it looks like a plant.
        
           | cocomutator wrote:
           | I shall learn from this post how to disagree respectfully on
           | the internet. Hats off.
        
             | wrycoder wrote:
             | There must be a Latin name for "plant-like" that could have
             | been used. Maybe "anomalous herbiform entity". But, I'm
             | poor at crosswords.
        
               | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
               | And then there are those of us who just prefer plain
               | English. Using Latin in a publication aimed at laypeople
               | sounds pretentious.
        
               | wrycoder wrote:
               | Yeah! I submitted this awhile back:
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30117500
        
               | embedded_hiker wrote:
               | This reminds me of when I heard the phrase "lenticular
               | cloud". I looked it up, hoping to learn something about
               | how these clouds are formed, etc. It simply means "shaped
               | like a lentil".
        
               | Hallucinaut wrote:
               | Perhaps this is autocorrect gone awry, but it has nothing
               | to do with lentils.
               | 
               | Not a meteorologist, but from all I understand it means
               | lens-shaped, and to me that immediately gives a strong
               | clue as to how they form since lenses have focal points
               | and can, to some degree, have shapes expressed as
               | formulae about some origin. Which to me is suggestive of
               | the relation to the mountains around which they form.
        
               | ncmncm wrote:
               | "Lentil" is itself a reference to its lens-like shape,
               | same as the cloud. "Lenticular" has nothing in it
               | suggestive of legumes.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | darepublic wrote:
           | Saying plant vs crystal makes it more click bait.
        
           | Qem wrote:
           | Looks more like a coral.
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | I agree, I often forget that corals are not plants(but they
             | look like plants, which probably means that the Mars rock
             | that look like a coral also looks like a plant).
        
               | DFHippie wrote:
               | And they act like plants: they photosynthesize; they are
               | sessile; and they are structured as a thin layer of
               | living tissue over a dead, rigid internal support.
        
             | blacksmith_tb wrote:
             | I could see that, or a sea sponge[1]
             | 
             | 1: https://study.com/academy/lesson/sea-sponge-lesson-for-
             | kids....
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | MaxMoney wrote:
        
       | pmontra wrote:
       | It's a Japanese rock garden. See the rake lines?
        
       | hownottowrite wrote:
       | Not a fulgurite. Not a selenite. Not even a dendrite. Probably
       | just salt.
       | 
       | People will always lose their minds over simple mineral
       | intrusions because the only rocks they've ever seen are just
       | round.
        
         | Frost1x wrote:
         | My first thought was some sort of crystal formation. Not sure
         | if it's salt but it does look crystalline in nature. I'll get
         | off my exogeologist armchair rest now.
        
         | abeppu wrote:
         | When you say "just salt" ... what kind of conditions produce
         | that sort of salt formation? Does it tell us anything about the
         | conditions when it was formed? Was there some brine pool or
         | something? How did it get exposed where it is now?
         | 
         | Maybe describing it as "plant-like" was not really called for,
         | can we still learn something interesting from this?
        
           | hownottowrite wrote:
           | There's always something cool to learn about geological
           | processes, even basic examples like this one.
        
           | berkes wrote:
           | I too am wondering if 'salt sculptures' implies there was
           | salt water at some point.
           | 
           | I have no idea. But can imagine that another proof of water,
           | salt even, is really nice.
        
             | MPSimmons wrote:
             | There was very definitely large* amounts of water on Mars,
             | and there is also evidence of salinity[1], so it seems
             | possible that there would be saline in volume to produce
             | deposits.
             | 
             | * - not compared to Earth, but more than you would think
             | from looking at the surface -
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars
             | 
             | [1] - http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/ngeo2546
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | More images here: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw-
       | images/
       | 
       | Closeup: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-
       | images/msss/03397/mhli/3397MH0...
        
         | shusaku wrote:
         | Cool! Can you explain some more how you ended up sharing this?
         | Did you find it yourself or maybe was there a related article?
        
           | zokier wrote:
           | This made rounds on reddit and twitter yesterday
           | 
           | https://www.reddit.com/r/Areology/comments/t18c2r/desert_flo.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://twitter.com/kevinmgill/status/1497274717077585922
        
           | satronaut wrote:
           | nasa puts all the images from their space probes up at
           | pds.jpl.nasa.gov it's a learning curve to navigate, but once
           | you know about it, it's addictive
        
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