NASA's Mars rovers are constantly finding interesting features of Mars, but every now and then they find something that – to the untrained eye – looks a bit like it belongs on Earth.
We've had gigantic "mice", a mysterious "doorway", and now (drum-roll please) the Perseverance Rover brings you evidence of Martian-Italians. Yes, in a photo that became NASA's coveted Image of the Week, the Perseverance Rover's front left hazard avoidance camera A found a piece of... something, which bears a striking resemblance to spaghetti.
Taken on Sol 495 (the 495th Martian day of the rover's mission), the image shows what looks like a strange plant if you want to believe in aliens, and refined pasta if you want to believe in aliens with a penchant for bolognese.
While Twitter users briefly got excited about the concept of Italians on Mars, the image likely does show something from Earth – just not delicious pasta.
Last month, the rover captured images of a piece of debris from its own sky crane. Before that, in the same month, it came across... some more trash from NASA. Maybe the next robot we send should be Wall-E.
