NASA’s curiosity rover has created a picture of a mineral formation shaped like a flower. The formation resembles a coral or sea anemone in the picture, but it’s just a lifeless structure. According to Space.com, rocks like flowers have been named blackthorn salt and it is a diagenetical feature, which means that it is made of mineral deposits left by the ancient water body.
The drawings of the structure were combined on February 25, after they were arrested near Mons Aeolis (Mount Sharp), which was Mount Mars which formed the middle peak in the gale crater in March. The curiosity rover was designed to explore this crater and had done it because it landed on Mars in August 2012 Images are made by combining between two and eight images previously taken by the MARS (Mahli) hand lens imager located in the tower at the end of the robot rover arm. Combining focus is used to combine several images in such a way as to ensure that as many features may be focused.
Abigail Fraeman, a deputy scientist for the Curiosity Project Mars Rover tweeted the same image with cents in the United States which is juxtaposed to help people understand the actual size of the structure. The Lincoln Penny Photoshopped to the image by the actual scientist from a one-cent picture which is part of the camera calibration target on the Casiositas Rover. According to Fraeman, a similar structure has been found on Mars in the past, especially in Hills Pahrump, outcrop on the Aeolis Mons base. There, its features are made of salt called sulfate.
