The rocky surface of Mars looks like a vast, cold desert covered in red dust and scattered stones. Its reddish color comes from iron-rich minerals that have rusted over billions of years. Ancient volcanoes like Olympus Mons once poured lava across the land, while massive canyons such as Valles Marineris carved deep scars into the planet’s crust. Today, the surface remains dry and silent, with craters, cliffs, and layered rocks preserving the history of a world that may have once had flowing wate

What you are seeing on the Mars surface is not a UFO or alien drone. It is NASA’s Mars helicopter called Ingenuity. Ingenuity arrived on Mars with the Perseverance rover in 2021. Its mission was to: Test powered flight on another planet Take aerial images of the Martian surface Help rovers choose safe paths Mars has very thin air, so Ingenuity uses fast-spinning blades to fly. It became the first aircraft to fly on another planet in history. Ingenuity proved that flight on Mars is possible, open

Watch incredible footage of NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021. This landing began a mission to explore the Red Planet that still continues today. | NOVA l PBS

This object on the surface of Mars is not a UFO or alien craft. It is human-made debris from a Mars landing mission. Specifically, this is part of the backshell and protective components used during the landing of a Mars rover, such as Perseverance. When rovers land on Mars, parts like: Heat shields Parachutes Backshells are intentionally discarded after slowing the spacecraft down. These parts crash onto the Martian surface and remain there. NASA later captures images of this debris to study la