Solved: Mystery of light on Mars

New Delhi: The car sized robotic rover called Curosity Rover who created controversies after it released a picture of a white light spotted on Mars has been clarified.NASA has clarified on the picture that showed a strange glow on Mars when Curosity Rover was sent on the planet as a part of Mars Mission in August, 2012.A blog on UFO had claimed that the light depicts that there is extra terrestrial life exists there. The white light spotted on Mars, a picture taken by the rover But NASA has finally clarified that it is a shiny rock or a camera glitchIt might be camera trick too. The rover science team is also looking at the possibility that the bright spots could be caused by cosmic rays striking the camera's detector.Or it might be the spot of sun when it sets or rises.The glow may have been caused by sunlight reaching the camera's sensors through a vent hole in the camera housing.Curosity Rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 The rover is fitted with 17 cameras. Curiosity takes images using two cameras, one in its right eye and the other in its left.The image taken from the right eye shows the spot and image taken from the left eye does not show the spot. Cydonia region on Mars perceived to be resembling human faceBen Biggs, editor of ‘All About Space magazine', says we should not jump to any conclusions when seeing images like this.There have been other instances too in the past.One famous occurrence was the ‘Face on Mars.'On 25 July 1976 NASA's Viking 1 orbiter released an image of a region called Cydonia that seemed to show a human face on the Red Planet.In reality it was nothing more than a phenomenon known as pareidolia, where the human brain picks out faces in an object, in this instance a chance aligning of shifting sand.