Researchers studying photos from NASA‘s Curiosity rover on Mars speculate that strange “puffball-like” rocks on the red planet might actually be fungi.
Dr. Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, microbiologist Xinli Wei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, astrophysicist Dr. Rudolph Schild from Harvard-Smithsonian, and several more authors of a study published this month in the journal Advances in Microbiology claimed a series of photographs from Mars may indicate signs of life in the form of mushrooms.
The objects in question seem to change shape and move over time, the researchers said in “Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior From Sequential Images,” and they grow in tracks left behind by the Curiosity rover.
Researchers on the project also suggested the formations were spotted elsewhere, saying, “Similar white-fungus-like specimens appeared inside an open rover compartment.”
The study suggests an apparent “growth, movement, and changes in shape and location” of the “mushroom-like” formations support the hypothesis “there is life on Mars.” Still, the authors admit the findings are not “proof of life.”
Sol-1145-vs-Sol-1148-Nine-spherical-and-semi-spherical-specimens-lay-upon-the-coarse.jpgBrendan Burns, an astrobiologist from the University of New South Wales in Australia, disputed any notion of life being discovered on the surface of Mars. “All available evidence suggests the surface of Mars is not hospitable to life,” Burns said, according to CNET.
Joseph sued NASA in 2014, demanding the agency examine a “putative biological organism,” which he claims he saw in Opportunity rover images. However, the alleged organism was discovered to be a rock, according to Space.com.
He also released a similar study on Research Gate in April 2020 that also claimed mushrooms might be growing on Mars.
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“Throughout its mission at Eagle Crater, Meridiani Planum, the rover Opportunity photographed thousands of mushroom-lichen-like formations with thin stalks and spherical caps, clustered together in colonies attached to and jutting outward from the tops and sides of rocks,” according to the 2020 study, which was not peer-reviewed.
Joseph, known by some as the “Space Tiger King” for his flamboyant appearance resembling the private zoo owner who went viral last year with the release of the Netflix special Tiger King, was previously scrutinized by astronomy experts, according to Futurism.com.
According to his webpage brainmind.com, Joseph is a neuroscientist who made significant contributions to the field of neuroplasticity during the 1970s, though his more recent work largely deals with research in the solar system. Joseph has, for more than a decade, published claims about life on other planets on his webpage and in pseudoscientific journals.
NASA has not published any findings confirming life on the surface of Mars to date, but in recent years, there have been promising discoveries on the red planet.
The agency announced in September 2015 it had discovered significant evidence of “hydrated minerals,” suggesting “liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.” And life, as humanity knows it on Earth, requires water.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to NASA about the study but did not immediately receive a response. A contact for Joseph was not immediately available.
