Could there be mushrooms on Mars? In a new paper, an international team of scientists from countries including the U.S., France, and China have gathered and compared photographic evidence they say shows fungus-like objects growing on the Red Planet. But other experts in the scientific community are skeptical of the claims.
In their paper, which appears in Scientific Research Publishing’s
Advances in Microbiology, the scientists analyze images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, plus the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. The scientists say the objects in question show “chalky-white colored spherical shaped specimens,” which the Mars Opportunity team
initially said was a mineral called hematite.
Later studies
refuted the hematite claim. Soon, a scientist named Rhawn Gabriel Joseph—the lead author of the new paper—coined the term “
Martian mushrooms” to describe the mysterious objects, because of how they resemble lichens and mushrooms. In
another study, fungi and lichen experts classified the spheres as “puffballs”—a white, spherical fungus belonging to the phylum
Basidiomycota found on Earth.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a33900282/elon-musk-says-settlers-will-die-on-mars/
In the new paper, the scientists point to a set of Opportunity photos that shows nine spheres increasing in size, and an additional 12 spheres emerging from beneath the soil, over a 3-day sequence. The researchers claim Martian wind didn’t uncover the amorphous spheres, and that they “expand in size, or conversely, change shape, move to new locations, and/or wane in size and nearly disappear.”
