A white light captured emanating from Mars’ surface is back and is as mysterious as ever.
Floating just above a dune on the right side of the black-and-white image, Curiosity spotted a hard-to-miss white light.
Images taken directly before and after the anomaly which are timestamped about a minute apart show up show no signs of any lights.
White lights are back on Mars in an image captured by NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover. It’s not the first time the rover has imaged the phenomenon. A similar bright spot was observed in 2015
In a pH๏τo snapped by NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been traversing Mars’ surface since 2012, the robotic explorer caught an anomaly among the planet’s rolling landscape
Though NASA hasn’t yet addressed what the light is, it has acknowledged similar phenomena in the past, when the Curiosity rover happened upon an equally mysterious illumination on Mars’ surface in 2014.
In a statement to DailyMail.com, a NASA spokesperson offered up a simple, if unsatisfying suggestion.
The images have not yet been fully explained by NASA but they could be reflections from the sun or interference. This white spot was seen in 2014
Alternatively, the NASA spokesperson said the light may have resulted from sunlight reflecting off of the rover’s sensors.
Similar reflections from the sun have cropped up in pH๏τos in the past when the sun is aligned at various positions in the sky.
‘The rover science team is also looking at the possibility that the bright spots could be caused by cosmic rays striking the camera’s detector.’
When it comes to the Curiosity rover, NASA has keyed in on other shiny phenomenon in the past, including what the believed to be fragments of a meteorite glinting in the sun.
Curiosity has roved Mars’ surface since 2012 making unprecedented discoveries about the Red Planet
