Curiosity Rover Photos Appear to Capture Strange Light on Surface of Mars
Posted on April 7, 2014
A peculiar light appears to coming out of the surface of Mars in this NASA photograph. The mystery light was captured by a NASA camera on the Curiosity rover. Chron.com has several more NASA photos of the light here. The same light can be seen in the distance on this photo taken by the Navcam: Right B on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.
NASA has not officially explained the light source. It could be a camera error or an illusion of some kind, but this has not prevented some UFO sites from speculating that the light "could indicate there there is intelligent life below the ground and uses light as we do." It is great there are sites out there closely examining all the images the Mars rovers are recording and sharing.
Alan Boyle from NBC News reports that Doug Ellison, a Visualization Producer at JPL, says the bright spot was caused by a "cosmic ray hit" on the Curiosity rover. A tweet by Ellison about the light source can be found here.
This video uploaded to YouTube shows more of the photographs. Take a look: