Hey, What’s That Shiny Thing On Mars?

Earlier this week NASA released a mysterious photo of the surface of Mars, taken by theCuriosity Rover.

The image shows a mysterious flash in the background that couldn’t be immediately explained by NASA.

So, obviously, the Internet exploded with theories about what the mystery object could be. After a few days of further research, NASA released the following statement:

“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.

“We think it’s either a vent-hole light leak or a glinty rock.”

Really, NASA? A rock? Thanks for raining on our parade. OK, so it’s not an alien or UFO, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate wildly about what we wish it was.

So, let’s make a game of it.

Comment below with your wildest, silliest and wackiest guesses for what the mystery light is, and I’ll send the three best comments Crashlings 4 Pack.

I got a shipment of the space toys, and I’d like to give them away to a few luck readers.

UPDATE! Congratulations to our four winners. Their answers are below.

Zach: “A Star Wars lightsaber fight.”

Nathan: “I’m pretty sure it’s the adamantium skeleton remains of Wolverine’s long lost martian cousin. Or maybe brother-in-law.”

Otis: “I think the shiny rock found on mars could possibly be a small civilization that has finally developed a camera with flash and they were taking pictures of the Curiosity rover.”

James: “A Martian scanner from the underground Martian mining community. They don’t live on the surface, they live underground!”