NASA has long maintained that it has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, but a newly resurfaced image from Mars has reignited wild speculation.
The photograph, captured by the Curiosity rover in 2024, shows a rocky hillside, distant peaks and a mysterious black object apparently suspended above the Martian horizon.
Curiosity has spent 14 years investigating whether Mars could once have supported microbial life.
However, it was the unexplained shape in the sky that captured attention after X user Kari Sivertzen reposted the image Wednesday.
The post quickly sparked theories that the object could be evidence of alien activity on the Red Planet.
However, the single frame offers no proof that the shape was a flying craft or even a physical object.
It also could not have been NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which was grounded approximately 2,300 miles away in Jezero Crater.
More mundane explanations include airborne dust, a camera artifact or a cosmic ray striking the rover's image sensor.
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