Fans of “Star Trek” were recently captivated by the discovery made by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa) Curiosity rover: the famous delta symbol that is typically worn by Starfleet officers on their uniforms.
However, given that the object in question is merely a rock that just so happens to resemble the symbol, it is extremely unlikely that a Starfleet team was on Mars, according to Space.com.
The image was first released by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on the Mars Curiosity raw images website. On January 9, the rover’s left navigation camera took a picture of it during Mars day, or sol 4062 of the mission.
On X, formerly Twitter, amateur astronomer Scott Atkinson joked about seeing the symbol and said, “I bet the Star Trek fans on the @MarsCuriosity team smiled like Cheshire Cats when they saw this new image appear on their screens.”
After landing on the Red Planet on August 5, 2012, Curiosity is presently investigating the conditions of life there by ascending Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, and examining its layers to learn more about how water flowed on the planet in the past.
According to the statement, the rover is currently in a zone that is rich in sulfate, which “may be the highest elevation layer it will ever visit.”
In order to investigate the makeup and texture of dark bands seen from orbit on a dark-toned bedrock block, Curiosity took the pictures during a near-term mission.
The mission’s short-term objective is to analyze the texture of the rocks using a variety of instruments.
