NASA's Perseverance rover spots a 'shark fin' and a 'crab claw' on Mars

Looking at this new picture from NASA's Perseverance rover, you'd be forgiven for thinking there's something fishy afoot on the Red Planet. That's because the car-sized robot has snapped an image of two separate boulders resembling a shark fin and a crab claw. The US space agency shared this latest discovery on X (formerly known as Twitter), prompting a wave of replies from space fans who joked that the crab-like rock was the remains of the'Almighty Great Cosmic Crab'. Others said the'claw' looked more like a coffee bean or the head of a turtle'digging a hole for its eggs', while some quipped that the shark fin might actually be the'back plates' of a Stegosaurus. The photos, which were taken last month, are the latest example of a phenomenon known as pareidolia -- where the human brain wants to make sense of what the eyes see so creates a meaning which isn't real. Peculiar: NASA's Perseverance rover has snapped images of two separate boulders resembling a shark fin and a crab claw Most famously with Mars, this happened in 1976 when NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft captured an image of what looked like a face carved into the surface of the Red Planet.