Is the Mysterious Cylinder on Mars, Photographed in 2022 by the Curiosity Rover, a Human-Made Debris?
A raw image from the Mast camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, taken on 2022–08–07 at 20:58:23 UTC, displays a mysterious cylinder buried in the Martian regolith of the Paraitepuy Pass — a narrow gap in the Gale Crater situated on the slopes of Mount Sharp.
This puzzling object was discovered in NASA’s database by Rami Bar Ilan and brought to my attention by Dr. Jan Špaček — who studies signatures of life on Mars and Professor Carol Cleland — who studies anomalies from a philosophical perspective. The object was publicly discussed in detail by Brian Dobbs here. I wrote back to Jan and Carol that anomalies are best analyzed in the open with full disclosure of all available data, since such discussions might motivate scientists to collect additional data that would resolve their mystery.
The cylinder can be seen in multiple images from both the Mastcam left and Mastcam right high-definition color cameras at different focal distances within the NASA, JPL, and WUSTL repositories. Related data was documented by NASA here, by JPL here (3556MR1025170721700585C00_DRCL), and by WUSTL here (Sol 3556, object 713174794). The cylinder was imaged from various angles here, here and here. It was identified in raw images of the Curiosity MSL analyst notebook but was not featured on the public mission website at the time of its discovery.
The shiny object has a perfectly round cylindrical shape with a length of about 20 centimeters and a flat end. The most likely explanation is that it corresponds to human-made debris.
Objects found by rovers that appear artificial are typically identified as debris from the mission’s own landing system, such as parts of the Sky Crane or heat shield that may have been carried by winds or scattered during the rover’s descent in 2012. This particular anomalous cylinder could be a bit of wiring or wheel material from Curiosity itself. The rover has shed small pieces during its operations, and similar anomalies in past images have been traced back to mission hardware. The Curiosity rover is approximately the size of a small SUV, measuring roughly 3-meters-long, 2.8-meters-wide, and 2.2-meters-tall. It weighs nearly 899 kilogram and features a 2.1-meters-long robotic arm and wheels with a 50.8-centimeter diameter.
The Martian harsh environment can also shape rocks into unusual forms, like the “blueberries” (hematite spherules) or gypsum crystals seen elsewhere in Gale Crater.
NASA has not officially commented on this mysterious cylindrical object.
Currently, the Curiosity rover is exploring the lower slopes of Mount Sharp within the Martian Gale Crater, about 8 kilometers away from the location of the cylinder. To clarify the mystery, it would make sense to go back to the cylinder’s location and examine it from up close. At Curiosity’s maximum speed of 0.16 kilometers per hour, the rover could return within a couple of days back to the location of the cylinder.
Should we just assume that the mysterious cylinder is human-made debris and move on or turn back the rover to figure out whether its origin is different?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
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