Mars Monolith: Is The Object On The Red Planet A Sign From Aliens?

A perfectly rectangular structure was discovered on Mars after amateur space enthusiasts investigated NASA pictures of the Red Planet. Based on the picture, the Mars monolith bears a resemblance to the monoliths left on Earth and the moon in the Stanley Kubrick classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But don't jump to the conclusion that the object was placed there by other worldly beings just yet.

The object was first discovered several years after it was photographed using a HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, reported Live Science. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA space probe that is used to photograph Earth's friendly red neighbor.

However, most researchers conclude, while it looks astounding, the Mars monolith is not anything out of the ordinary. It simply appears to be nothing more than a rectangular boulder on the surface of the fourth planet from the sun.

It would be unwise to refer to it as a 'monolith' or 'structure' because that implies something artificial, like it was put there by someone for example said a spokesman for the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory said, according to The Sun. In reality it's more likely that this boulder has been created by breaking away from the bedrock to create a rectangular-shaped feature.

Researchers also suggest that the camera, while one of the best in the world is not sharp enough to capture the exact features of a boulder, reported Life's Little Mysteries.

When your resolution is too low to fully resolve an object, it tends to look rectangular because the pixels in the image are squares, said Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State researcher Jonathon Hill, according to Life's Little Mysteries. Any curve will look like a series of straight lines if you reduce your resolution enough.

He also said that the height of the object is exaggerated due to the a low sun angle when the photo was napped.

The location of the boulder is at the bottom of a cliff near other boulders. This could suggest that it simply broke off from the others and rolled to its current position, some time ago, said Hill.

To Hill, this proves it is simply a coincidence and not a plot by an alien life-form.

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.