At 03:53:59 UTC on June 16, 2019, or Sol 2438, the rover’s navcam captured a black-and-white photo with a mysterious light in it.
What could it be?
A NASA spokesperson told Fox News the anomaly is "likely an effect of the Sun" and that "images with effects like this" are seen "pretty routinely."
In 2014, a separate mysterious white light was also spotted by Curiosity on the Red Planet. The light appeared in photos taken by the rover’s “right eye” and did not appear seconds later in images taken by the “left eye.”
Jet Propulson Labratory scientist Dr. Justin Maki told the Huffington Post at the time that he believed the light could be a “glint from a rock surface reflecting the sun.”
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In addition to the strange image released publicly, Curiosity also found the largest amount of methane ever measured during the mission, NASA said. Scientists said the news was exciting because microbial life is an important source of methane on Earth — but methane can also be made by interactions between rocks and water.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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