Strange tube-like structures on Martian rocks might not be an indicator of life, informs NASA

Mars has been a planet full of mystery and to crack that mystery, NASA scientists have sent the revolutionary Curiosity rover to the Red Planet. Well, since its landing on the Martian surface, the Curiosity rover has not disappointed the mission scientists. Recently, it discovered a strange type ‘stick-like figures’ on the planet’s rocky and dusty surfaces. Many started speculating that Mars might be holding alien life. But, the Curiosity team confirmed that those bizarre tubular structures are nothing but crystal growths on the rocks.

When the mission team uploaded the pictures of the strange stick-like figures on Twitter, many people thought them to be tiny burrowing creatures or earthworm-like creatures. But when NASA team first saw the odd tubular structures they had the initial impressions the structures might be the crystals, or they could be the minerals that filled spaces where crystals dissolved the way. Everybody here on Earth was anxious to what the odd tubular structures on the red [planet is all about.

Some were hopeful that the weir tubes might probably be the indicators of life. So, when the Curiosity team closely analyzed the odd structures, they found out that although they were linear, they were not tubular in the sense of being cylinders. Those were actually quite angular. Curiosity mission scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California said that those weird structures on Martian surface have a kind of a square or a parallelogram sort of cross section and they form at angles to each other when there are multiple of them together.

Vasavada furthers said the Curiosity team suspecting the odd stick-like figures to that of crystals or a mold in the rock formed by crystals that were later filled in by sedimentary materials. In simple words, it can be said that the hardened crystals present inside rocks withstood the erosion that eroded the rocks and at present, they stick out from the eroded rocks. Crystals are there means there is involvement of liquid water which indicates that the area, Curiosity rover is currently exploring was a wet area in the past.