NASA Photo Shows Mysterious 'Cosmic Ray Of Light' On Mars Horizon

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program was set out in 1993 with the main purpose of exploring the possibilities of finding life on Mars, study its climate and determine if it has natural resources that perhaps we can eventually utilize once the first human colony has been established.

With the help of some of the most sophisticated tools in scientific exploration like the Mars rover Curiosity, scientists back on Earth were able to learn so much about the Red Planet. This includes learning about Mars radiation which will help us determine if the alien planet is safe for human missions, being able to discover the planet’s complex geological structure and of course, learning that the Red Planet was once filled with water. The latter plays a crucial role in trying to see if there is indeed life on Mars.

Aside from these scientific milestones, there are also those unique and mysterious encounters on Mars that have excited another set of space enthusiasts: alien theorists and UFOlogists. By browsing through hundreds of photos that were beamed back to Earth by the Curiosity rover, people were able to find oddities and weird shapes that basically pointed out that there could really be life on the Red Planet.

These discoveries have excited the alien geeks and even got a significant part of the scientific community discussing it. For example, a photo that seemingly showed a “woman” wearing a flowy dress on the Red Planet was able to get some people in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory talking.

They eventually dismissed the image as nothing more than rock formation but it did not stop the rest of alien believers from exploring more of the photos. In time, other images have been found, including a supposed fish fossil, a rat, a penguin, and even a Sasquatch skull.

The excitement of these discoveries have been around for the past few years and some of them have been considered truly controversial. One of these is the supposed mysterious cosmic ray of light that was captured by Curiosity along the Martian horizon.

According to CNET, the blip of light was captured by the rover's right navigation camera. The cosmic light is quite unique because it looked like the light was coming from a flat surface and eventually dissipated in the atmosphere. Needless to say, it got a lot of alien conspiracy theorists excited, coming up with the theory that it’s an artificial light that came from intelligent other-beings.

However, representatives from JPL were quick to clarify what they believe the light really was. “It's not in the left-Navcam image taken at the exact same moment. It's a cosmic ray hit," Doug Ellison, visualization producer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained over Twitter. NASA also clarified that cosmic rays are “high-energy particles that go flying through space.”

Cosmic rays are in fact quite common in space, with astronauts regularly reporting sightings of the light phenomenon. "When a cosmic ray happens to pass through the retina, it causes the rods and cones to fire, and you perceive a flash of light that is really not there," astronaut Don Pettit said on his blog a few years ago.