While people on Earth have been telling each other to “love long and prosper” for decades now, a recent image sent back from Mars is really giving scientists a good chuckle.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spends its days roaming and taking pictures, and on this particular day, what looked like the delta-shaped Starfleet logo from Star Trek appeared in a photo of a rock.

It was taken on January 9th with the rover’s left navigation camera.

The next day Stuart Atkinson – amateur Mars enthusiast and “astropoet – documented the finding in a tweet.

I bet the Star Trek fans on the @MarsCuriosity team smiled like Cheshire Cats when they saw this new image appear on their screens… 🙂

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech pic.twitter.com/SdWyq4Sc5P

— Stuart Atkinson (@mars_stu) January 10, 2024

What’s even weirder than the existence of an astropoet is that this isn’t the first time strange rocks on Mars have piqued the public’s interest.

Scientists are still trying to explain this odd donut-shaped rock, found by Perseverance in 2020.

[RPT] Jelly Donut Shaped Rock Appears on Mars: http://t.co/CGzSkNN1tQ (image by @MarsRovers) pic.twitter.com/gnnKD82W0S

— Astronomy Picture Of the Day (@apod) January 29, 2014

Arizona State University researcher Jim Rice was interviewed about that strange rock on CNN.

“I can’t say with absolute, 100 percent certainty it’s not a meteorite, but I think it’s highly unlikely. The reason I saw that is because, this region we’re in, we see a lot of rocks that have these kind of hollowed-out interiors.”

The “Starfleet” rock is not as weird, comparatively, but is is delightful.

And that just might be better.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read a story that reveals Earth’s priciest precious metal isn’t gold or platinum and costs over $10,000 an ounce!