As space agencies like NASA are busy formulating plans to send humans to Mars, a logo has already got imprinted on the Martian surface and it is nothing but Star Trek's Starfleet logo. The bizarre finding was made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in the southeast Hella Planitia region.
Even though the discovery was made on April 22, the MRO camera team at the University of Arizona unveiled the picture only on Wednesday, June 12.
"Enterprising viewers will make the discovery that these features look conspicuously like a famous logo: and you'd be right, but it's only a coincidence," wrote Ross Beyer, a researcher at the University of Arizona in a recent statement.
Even though the new discovery has already grabbed the eyeballs of alien hunters who believe extraterrestrial existence on Mars in the ancient days, experts revealed that chevron shapes are not uncommon on the Red Planet's surface.
However, experts at NASA made it clear that these shapes are the result of the lava flow that happened in the Martian surface during ancient times. As per the scientists, this particular chevron is caused by an eruption which happened in an impact basin long time ago. In the course of time, this flow has attained the shape of a Star Trek logo.
"Long ago, there were large crescent-shaped (barchan) dunes that moved across this area, and at some point, there was an eruption. The lava flowed out over the plain and around the dunes, but not over them," said University of Arizona researchers.
They also mentioned that "The lava solidified, but these dunes still stuck up like islands. However, they were still just dunes, and the wind continued to blow. Eventually, the sand piles that were the dunes migrated away, leaving these "footprints" in the lava plain."
A few days ago, renowned Italian physicist Marco Durante had revealed that it is practically impossible for humans to reach Mars using current technologies. As per Durante humans will face death in each step of the Mars mission, and the main villain in this course will be intense space radiation.
