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NASA ’s Curiosity rover snap an challenging picture of a tiny Martian rock music that looks surprisingly like a fossilized Scripture on the surface of the Red Planet .
The rover captured the image of the particular book - alike rock on April 15 — the 3,800th Martian daytime , or sol , of its mission — using the Mars Hand Lens Imager ( MAHLI ) on the ending of its robotic arm , according toNASA . The reddish rock looks like two halves of an undefended book with a unmarried Thomas Nelson Page that has freeze halfway through being turned .
The so-called Martian ‘book’ looks like it’s half read.
The stone may depend somewhat like a Holy Writ , but it is much smaller . The fossilized pageturner is actually just 1 inch ( 2.5 centimetre ) across , according to NASA .
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" rock-and-roll with strange shapes are common on Mars , " NASA example indite . The strangely shaped rocks are made from mineral that were provide behind by ancient water supply . These minerals would once have been buried beneath softer deposit , but billions of years of erosion by wind have blow by everything else , they add up .
In February 2022 , Curiosityspotted a pronged " mineral flower"that was around 0.4 in ( 1 cm ) wide . And on Feb. 16 , the rover snap rocks imprinted with diminutive ripples , or waves , left behind from an ancient lake .
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Scientists have also seen larger - musical scale shapes carved out by ancient piss on the Red Planet — including a expectant rock constitution thatlooks just like a teddy bear ’s faceand another that ’s a deadened ringer for thefrizzy - hirsute Muppet Beaker .
Curiosity has also caught a few image that are more stunning than perplexing . On Feb. 2 , the rovercaptured the first clear images of " Dominicus shaft " on Mars , which occur when sun shines through gaps in the cloud during sundown or sunrises when the sun is below the horizon .
