A UFO was spotted over Mars, but it turned out to be a speck on the rover's camera

In one of the images of Mars sent by the Perseverance rover, a strange black object was found in the sky. Curious members of the public began to build the most incredible theories, but NASA experts once again disappointed conspiracy theorists: the mysterious UFO turned out to be just dust on the camera.

A photo with a mysterious black object in the sky was taken by the Perseverance rover on November 27. Reddit community members who discovered it on the NASA website began to put forward various hypotheses, even the most incredible and curious, including an ant and a plastic bag flying through the sky. The dispute was judged by an imaging specialist from NASA, Justin Maki (Justin Maki).

"They are caused by microscopic pieces of debris on the sensor. Most or all sensors have such artifacts. They are usually noticeable only when the camera receives an image of the sky or a flat radiometric surface," CNET quotes the expert.

His words are confirmed by another picture, also taken by Perseverance last Sunday: the same object is clearly visible on it, only it is now "hanging" not in the sky, but in the middle of the Martian landscape. And this is not the first case of such artifacts.

In early October, the Curiosity rover exploring the Gale crater in another area of Mars sent a picture with a similar object, also "floating" in the sky. In addition, the engineers of the Perseverance team are already aware of this feature of the equipment, and the pictures taken by the device are usually edited. It's just that this time NASA published the photos in raw form.