Mars 'Monolith' PHOTO Snapped By Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Sparks Astronomers' Interest

The Martian surface feature in question.

By: Natalie Wolchover
Published: 04/11/2012 05:50 PM EDT on Lifes Little Mysteries

Amateur stargazers have discovered an intriguing object jutting out from the surface of Mars. The seemingly perfectly rectangular, upright structure, found in NASA images of the Red Planet, bears a striking resemblance to the monoliths planted on Earth and the moon by aliens in the classic sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The object in question was first spotted several years ago after being photographed by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a NASA space probe; every so often, it garners renewed interest on the Internet. But is it unnatural — a beacon erected by aliens for mysterious reasons, and even more mysteriously paralleled in the imaginations of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, creators of "2001"? Or is this rock the work of nature? [Photo ]

According to Jonathon Hill, a research technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, who processes many of the images taken during NASA's Mars missions, the object in question is no more than a roughly rectangular boulder. 

The HiRISE camera that photographed it has a resolution of approximately 1 foot (30 centimeters) per pixel — impressive considering the 180-mile (300-kilometer) altitude from which it photographs the Martian surface, but not quite sharp enough to capture the cragginess of a mid-size boulder. "When your resolution is too low to fully resolve an object, it tends to look rectangular because the pixels in the image are squares. Any curve will look like a series of straight lines if you reduce your resolution enough," Hill told Life's Little Mysteries.

The location of the boulder at the bottom of a cliff near many other boulders suggests it broke off the cliff and tumbled to its current spot sometime in the distant past, Hill said. Such a perilous location is itself an argument against deliberate placement by aliens: "If I was going to build a monolith somewhere, that's the last place I would put it!" he said. "The debris falling from the cliff would cover it up pretty quickly, on geologic timescales." [Vote: Do You Believe in Life on Mars?]

Hill added that the height of the boulder is being exaggerated in the photo by a low sun angle. Photographed when the sun was near the horizon, the boulder casts an especially long shadow. 

The ufologists aren't necessarily wrong in calling it a monolith — the word simply translates from Latin as "one stone." But this monolith isn't the masonry of Martians. 

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries and join us on Facebook.

• Seeing Things On Mars: A History of Martian Illusions
• 7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs
• If We Discover Aliens, What's Our Protocol for Making Contact?

Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Comments

[sharpstick]

05:13 PM on 06/14/2012

Finally, a photo of W's National Guard records.

[Tyler Wharton]

10:48 PM on 04/15/2012

Just saying, keep an open mind about it... it might be from another race of creatures... or possibly formed by nature... I myself belive from the shadow and the tip of it looks like an Obalisk from Ancient Egypt... but like i said keep an open mind.. im not the smartest man in the world but dont sit here and bs people saying "it is not alien" and/or "it is alien" be open mined about it (note: when i stated what i think it is i thought about it for a good 9 or so minutes) but... i cant tell you what you can and cannot do...

[baskemp]

02:49 AM on 04/15/2012

Actually it is a sign and when fully blown up it says "Next rest stop 25 billion light years".

[aintbuynit]

04:08 PM on 04/14/2012

So many people are completely illogical. That monolith on Mars is nothing more than that, a stone. Why would there not be cities or something? They came from at least 4 light years away, the next nearest star system I believe, to build an unimpressive monument? It reminds me of the lack of common sense from the ufo freaks. Why would aliens come all this way to play peekaboo? Come on people, get real! For those of you that don't know what 4 light years is get out your calculator and do this simple math problem: 186,000 x the number of seconds in a year, now multiply that by 4. This is how many miles the nearest possible place is that aliens could come from. Take a puff, open your mind, then come back and look at the evidence.

[Tyler Wharton]

10:54 PM on 04/15/2012

Hey, dont be rude to other peoples belifes and "It reminds me of the lack of common sense from the ufo freaks." was a little rude... seeing as how the ufology community raises around 20 million a year and donates for space reaserch.. keep an open mind about everything.. sitting here saying "Take a puff, open your mind, then come back and look at the evidence"... the only "evidence" i see here is a picture of what looks to me, myself as an Obalisk. (even though it might not be) it could possibly be nature and it could possibly not be... whos to say its not? just open your mind to what it could be... made through nature or crafted through other beings... think about it,

[fuzzychickens]

11:28 AM on 04/14/2012

Hey, we pay good money for NASA to airbrush this crap out before we see it - I want a refund.

[Alexander Brenner]

01:27 AM on 04/14/2012

I bet ol' Richard C. Hoagland is creaming his pants over this one.

[Robert Kyte]

05:27 PM on 04/13/2012

Why can we not see the image in question with such clarity as the rest of the photos in this article?,Because its news worthy only of the likes of the National Enquirer??

[canoeal]

04:42 PM on 04/13/2012

Maybe it's symbolic...Obama's gravestome...He killed the space program...

[Robert Kyte]

05:28 PM on 04/13/2012

The space program was dead long before he became President son,and he had nothing to do with it at all really,get an education PLEASE

[LedFox]

07:31 PM on 04/13/2012

You really should get an education.

[canoeal]

04:41 PM on 04/13/2012

Not buying it the resolution arond this object gives smaller objects shape...and what about the very rectangular shadow from the object??? come on guys you are allowed to say "I dunno" or figure out a more plausable answer....

[Joe Brindley]

04:37 PM on 04/13/2012

It looks like Obama's birth certificate.

[Teej Gbayea]

05:32 PM on 04/13/2012

And the punchline to your joke.

[Joe Brindley]

05:38 PM on 04/13/2012

Who's joking?

[BrainSharez]

04:28 PM on 04/13/2012

Leave it up to an image technician that is sitting in an office in Arizona to decide that it's only a rectangular boulder. Sounds extremely lazy and overlooked to me.

The US has pumped billions of dollars into space exploration on behalf of tax payers, yet they have only shared a microscopic fraction of their findings.

ZERO transparency here...

[Teej Gbayea]

05:34 PM on 04/13/2012

Yes, o' wise armchair astronomer, imbue us your infinite knowledge of extraterrestrial geography with your extra cheesy fingers.

[Fburfel]

09:46 PM on 04/14/2012

Go easy, he/she seems to be sharing a brain with someone else

[rcott1019]

04:28 PM on 04/13/2012

It is clear that we are not alone.

[carmenalex]

05:38 PM on 04/13/2012

It is certainly NOT clear. There are PLENTY of natural rock formations that look man-made but are not.
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/07/22/18-natural-formations-that-look-man-made/

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

11:49 PM on 04/13/2012

Very cool site, thanks.

[jen2071]

04:24 PM on 04/13/2012

Who cares, not I.

[Octagonalsign]

04:19 PM on 04/13/2012

That is most definitely a left front door from a 1932 Chevy.....now we just have to figure out how it got there.

[houseiowapark]

04:18 PM on 04/13/2012

We have been sold a bill of goods. It is a studio model, photographed and we were told this is Mars. Humbug.