Curiosity spacecraft finds 'entrance' on Mars: What is this strange structure?

New photos from NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars have revealed a strange sight: A rectangular hole opening under a large rock that looks like a man-made doorway.

The image, taken by the Mars rover Curiosity at Mount Sharp on May 7, 2022, resembles the doorway of a passage.

Technology blog Gizmodo reported, the photo was taken by the Curiosity spacecraft on May 7, as it descended from Mount Sharp. This is an image very familiar to gamers. Most of the doors leading into the mysterious underground world look like this.

Ashwin Vasavada, a scientist at Curiosity's Mars Science Laboratory, told Gizmodo by phone: 'it's probably the space between two cracks in a rock.' These rocks were formed by the hardening of ancient sand dunes, which had piled up over the centuries.

Mr. Vasavada said, the hole is only about 30.5 cm high. These ancient sand dunes became rock-hard when they were compacted. Over the long years, as the Martian crust shifts, the dunes are sometimes buried, sometimes exposed. The pressure caused by these changes has created gaps in the dunes.

Mr. Vasavada explained: 'Most of the cracks that we have seen in this area are vertical,' there are 2 possible sources of this doorway-like crack, it could be 2 longitudinal cracks, but the piece in the middle is gone, or it could be a vertical crack and the blocks have shifted.

Curiosity has been exploring Gale Crater since it landed on Mars in August 2012. To date, the spacecraft has traveled about 27.84 km and spent 3,472 days and nights on Mars. Curiosity's main job is to collect rock samples for analysis, and take some pictures on the way to Mars at leisure.

This photo is one of them, helping people have a different view of the unusual landscape on Mars. In the past, rovers have also photographed various rocks on Mars, some resembling a squirrel, some resembling a spoon.