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  • 2022-05-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Does This NASA Photo Show a ‘Portal’ and ‘Wall’ on Mars? (en)
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  • A popular May 2022 post on Reddit that claimed NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover captured a photograph of an alleged portal and a wall nearby that looks artificial on the red planet was as incredible as it seemed. That was because while something depicted in the grainy, black-and-white version of the photograph taken by a camera aboard the rover could be interpreted to resemble the shape of a door, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) told Snopes that it actually was a very, very, very zoomed in shot of a tiny crevice in a rock. The team’s scientists underlined just how small [the crevice] is: roughly 30 centimeters wide and 45 centimeters across (11 by 17 inches), a JPL spokesperson said via email. They said there are linear fractures throughout this outcrop, and this is a location where several linear fractures happen to intersect. The photograph was taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) outfitted aboard Curiosity, a system that uses fixed-focal length, multispectral imagers to capture true color images of the red planet and beyond. The door image was captured on May 7, 2022, which is also Sol 3466 — the 3,466th solar day on Mars, or a Mars-day. NASA media relations team also referred us to a publicly available, digital mosaic of photos that the rover also captured. Neville Thompson, who is not affiliated with NASA, created the piece, which showed contents of the in-question image within the broader marscape. The tiny door (crevice) can be seen roughly dead center, up a little, and a bit to the left. See it? You can zoom in with the +/- on the right side of the screen. It’s very small and looks like ... a crevice in the rock, the spokesperson wrote. While we can't say for certain whether Martians indeed used itty-bitty, little doors, NASA was sure that the door in this instance was just a small rock crevice. So, while the Reddit post displayed an authentic photo captured by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, the photo did not show either a portal or an artificial wall. As such, we rated this claim as Miscaptioned. Want more fact checks about weird and wacky Mars rumors? Check out these: (en)
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