Does This NASA Photo Show a Portal and Wall on Mars?

A photograph captured by NASAs Mars Curiosity Rover on May 7, 2022, showed a portal and a wall nearby that looks artificial.

While the image in question was an authentic photo captured by a camera aboard the NASA Curiosity rover on May 7, 2022, the agencys Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Snopes that, what some social media users interpreted to be a portal and a wall, was actually a rock crevice on the red planet.

A popular May 2022 post on Reddit that claimed NASAs Mars Curiosity rover captured a photograph of an alleged portal and a wall nearby that looks artificial on the red planet was as incredulous as it seemed.

That was because while something depicted in the grainy, black-and-white version of the photograph taken by a camera aboard the rover could be interpreted to resemble the shape of a door, the agencys Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) told Snopes that it actually was a very, very, very zoomed in shot of a tiny crevice in a rock.

The teams scientists underlined just how small [the crevice] is: roughly 30 centimeters wide and 45 centimeters across (11 by 17 inches), a JPL spokesperson said via email. They said there are linear fractures throughout this outcrop, and this is a location where several linear fractures happen to intersect.

The photograph was taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) outfitted aboard Curiosity, a system that uses fixed-focal length, multispectral imagers to capture true color images of the red planet and beyond. The door image was captured on May 7, 2022, which is also Sol 3466 the 3,466th solar day on Mars, or a Mars-day.

NASA media relations team also referred us to a publicly available, digital mosaic of photos that the rover also captured. Neville Thompson, who is not affiliated with NASA, created the piece, which showed contents of the in-question image within the broader marscape.

The tiny door (crevice) can be seen roughly dead center, up a little, and a bit to the left.

See it? You can zoom in with the +/- on the right side of the screen. Its very small and looks like a crevice in the rock, the spokesperson wrote.

While we cant say for certain whether Martians indeed used itty-bitty, little doors, NASA was sure that the door in this instance was just a small rock crevice. So, while the Reddit post displayed an authentic photo captured by NASAs Mars Curiosity rover, the photo did not show either a portal or an artificial wall. As such, we rated this claim as False.

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Sources

Bell III, James F., et al. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Mastcam Instruments: Preflight and in-Flight Calibration, Validation, and Data Archiving. Earth and Space Science, vol. 4, no. 7, 2017, p. 396452. pubs.er.usgs.gov, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EA000219.

Does This Photo Show a Hole Drilled on Mars? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photo-hole-drilled-on-mars/. Accessed 11 May 2022.

kinger90210. NEW: 2022-05-07 A Formation on Mars Which Appears to Be a Portal and a Wall Nearby That Looks Artifical. Image Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech. Mars Rover. R/Interestingasfuck, 11 May 2022, http://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/umyqdy/new_20220507_a_formation_on_mars_which_appears_to/.

mars.nasa.gov. Sol 3466: Mast Camera (Mastcam). NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1064629. Accessed 11 May 2022.

MSL 3466 MR. http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/229311/. Accessed 11 May 2022.

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Does This NASA Photo Show a Portal and Wall on Mars?