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Space·1 min read

Perseverance Mars spaghetti: the strange strand NASA's rover spotted

NASA's Perseverance rover photographed what looks like a strand of pasta on Mars. A NASA spokesperson says it is probably debris from the mission, though nobody is sure.

A thin, curved strand resembling spaghetti lying on the reddish, rocky surface of Mars, photographed by the Perseverance rover.
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Mars rovers have a habit of sending home pictures that make people do a double take. Curiosity sent a spoon-like shape. Spirit once appeared to catch a figure waving from the rocks. Now Perseverance has found what looks very much like a piece of spaghetti.

The front camera of the rover, which is still working on Mars, captured the odd object on 12 July 2022. A NASA spokesperson has said it is most likely a fragment from the Mars mission itself, but what exactly it is has not been established.

Is the Mars spaghetti really pasta?

Almost certainly not. Nobody cooked it and left it behind, and it is not a living thing. The most sensible reading is plain space junk, the leftovers of a mission that put a lot of hardware on the surface.

There is a precedent. In June 2022, Perseverance photographed a shiny object lying among the rocks. NASA analysed it and found it was a piece of the thermal blanket the rover carried when it landed on Mars in February 2021.

Why does a bit of rubbish matter on Mars?

On Earth, a stray strand of something is just litter. On Mars, every unexplained object sets off a small investigation.

Mars may have been able to support life billions of years ago, but today it is a dry, sandy planet where living things would struggle. That does not close the question of whether anything is out there, and that open question is a big part of the planet's pull.

For now, the pasta is a reminder of how much attention each image from Mars gets. Even the likely boring explanation has to be checked.

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Tags:nasaperseverancemarsmars roverspace debris

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