NASA picture of Mars 'doorway' sparking bizarre conspiracy theories

The images are pretty wild, to be fair

In newly released images from NASA, scientists appear to have found what conspiracy theorists are now dubbing the 'Mars doorway' on the surface on the red planet. Captured by NASA's Curiosity rover last week, images clearly show a door-shaped rectangular shape carved into the side of a rockface and, unsurprisingly, space fanatics are calling on alien life as the most likely explanation. [caption id="attachment_335989" align="alignnone" width="1200"]

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS - Images of the 'Mars doorway' captured by the Mast Camera of the Curiosity rover on May 7, 2022[/caption] However, despite alien fanatics getting carried away, scientists have been quick to throw cold water over their theories, with Imperial College Professor Sanjeev Gupta telling The Telegraph that the picture itself shows evidence of how the entry-shaped 'doorway' formed through "normal geological processes". He went on to assure that "the crack is a fracture and they are abundant on Mars and Earth - no need for marsquakes to produce them", adding that regardless of which planet you're talking about, such fissures could have taken place at any time in the past few hundred million years. Even still, extra-terrestrial believers and those within the conspiracy theory community are still pretty convinced the opening is too refined, "smooth and precise" and is indeed a Mars doorway carved by some form of intelligent life: https://twitter.com/factchecknikos/status/1524478199324987392?s=20&t=vSF-AY1hy3DBkSyB0yd19Q https://twitter.com/MrMoeOthman/status/1524429827310301184?s=20&t=vSF-AY1hy3DBkSyB0yd19Q Similar conspiracy theories began circulating back in December, when a supposed "mystery house" was spotted on the Moon. https://twitter.com/milehigherjosh/status/1525293917398130689?s=20&t=vSF-AY1hy3DBkSyB0yd19Q The Curiosity rover was launched back in 2011 and these are some of the most speculative images it has captured thus far. However, to put the opening into context, a NASA spokesperson insisted that the hole is actually only 30 centimetres by 45 centimetres in size.