On Mars, NASA's Perseverance Rover discovers an object that looks like spaghetti

There's spaghetti on Mars, string cheese on Mars, or a piece of landing debris on Mars. Since NASA's Perseverance rover spotted it, the internet wants to know what it is.

Perseverance took this picture on July 12, 2022, the 495th day of the rover's ongoing mission to study Mars. It appears to be a stringy object nestled in the sand between unassuming Martian rocks.

You can view the photo below, along with one taken from a different perspective which illustrates the scale of the object and its proximity to Perseverance.

I am unsure what the object is. Based on what I can see upon closer inspection, the object appears to be a bundle of strings. If that is the case, then one might speculate what it is about.

As a result, public attention quickly arose when the image was shared. It didn't take long for social media users to become interested in the object. Most, of course, were cracking jokes, and many of them likened it to a bundle of spaghetti. There is also a possibility that it looks like string cheese.

'I'm weak at the knees, sweat pouring down my face, dust is on my solar panels already, it's Mars spaghetti,' wrote another. Perseverance's Image of the Week is determined by a public vote every week, and the object's image was voted to be this week's.

It has been reported by not only CNET but also Air Force Magazine and several other outlets that the most likely explanation for the object is that it is a piece of debris that Perseverance itself released during its parachute-assisted landing maneuver in February 2021.

There has been a precedent for this in the past. The Perseverance rover first discovered the parachute it used to land on Mars in April this year. Then in June, it found the shiny foil that served as its thermal blanket during descent.

This is quite unexpected, as said the rover's official Twitter account at the time. The rover's descent stage crashed about 2 km away from this spot. Did this piece land here after that crash, or was it blown here by the wind?' it asked.

There is as yet no official explanation from NASA for the newly discovered spaghetti-like object. Newsweek has reached out to them for comment. There is no denying that the mysterious images of Mars taken by Perseverance or by its older robotic colleague Curiosity seldom fail to attract the attention of the general public.

An image of a humanoid shape lying down in a Martian rock earlier this year caused much speculation about what seemed to be a doorway. In regard to the latter, NASA scientist Mitch Schulte told Newsweek at the time that Mars is considered to be utterly inhospitable for life as we know it today.