Is it life or UFO on Mars? Nasa rover captures strange image

A bright white light shining on the Mar's horizon has started a series of speculation about life on the planet.

Debate whether it is life or UFO is doing the rounds on major news outlets including NBC News and the Houston Chronicle.

Nasa's Curiosity rover captured an image of what appears to be a bright white light shining on the planet.

Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained, that the "bright spots" appear in images taken by the stereo camera's right-eye camera, but not the left.

(AP)

In the two right-eye images, the spot is in different locations of the image frame and, in both cases, at the ground surface level in front of a crater rim on the horizon.

One possibility is that the light is the glint from a rock surface reflecting the sun.

When these images were taken each day, the sun was in the same direction as the bright spot, west-northwest from the rover, and relatively low in the sky.

The rover science team is also looking at the possibility that the bright spots could be sunlight reaching the camera's CCD directly through a vent hole in the camera housing, which has happened previously on other cameras on Curiosity and other Mars rovers when the geometry of the incoming sunlight relative to the camera is precisely aligned. It can be a vent-hole light leak or a glinty rock.

Experts aren't sure what the "light" is yet.

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