NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover captured a photo of what appears to be a purposefully carved doorway leading somewhere deep into the Red Planet last week.

The image was captured by the Curiosity rover’s Mastcam on May 7 as the rover climbed Mount Sharp. According to Gizmodo, the grainy image has piqued the interest of conspiracy theorists because the formation does not appear to be a naturally occurring phenomenon, but rather as if a doorway was purposefully carved into the side of the hill.

But NASA scientists are tempering expectations.

“It’s just the space between two fractures in a rock,” says Ashwin Vasavada, a project scientist with the Mars Science Laboratory.

“We’ve been traveling through an area formed by ancient sand dunes.” The fractures in this area are mostly vertical. “I believe we have either two vertical fractures with the middle piece removed, or one vertical fracture with the blocks slightly separated.”

Experts believe that what is going on here is the human brain’s tendency to see familiar shapes when looking at unfamiliar environments. According to Gizmodo, a squirrel and a spoon were also thought to have been seen on Mars. It’s not just limited to Mars, either.

In December, China’s Yutu 2 lunar rover photographed what was described as a “mystery hut” on the moon’s furthest side, and Chinese scientists were willing and ready to examine what appeared to be signs of extraterrestrial life.

“An obtrusive cube on the northern skyline drew their attention,” the scientists explained at the time. “This object struck the winding skyline like a ‘mysterious hut’ that appeared out of thin air.”

However, upon closer inspection, which took the rover more than two days to complete, it was discovered that the shape was just a trick of the camera, lighting, and perspective, as the “hut” was revealed to be nothing more than a rock.

Skeptics are really not convinced, and many make the argument that nature, despite numerous examples to the contrary, doesn’t tend to make straight lines like those seen in Curiosity’s photo.

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On Saturday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soared into clear skies above the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, capping off a coast-to-coast flurry of launches just under 24 hours apart.

The 230-foot rocket fired from Launch Complex 40 at 4:40 p.m. EDT and delivered 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit less than an hour later. It was the internet-beaming constellation’s 47th launch.

It came after another Falcon 9 rocket launched the 47th batch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Friday. SpaceX has delivered 106 Starlinks to orbit in the last two days, bringing the constellation’s total size closer to 2,500 operational satellites.

Saturday’s Cape mission featured a brand new booster, which flew flawlessly and landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship shortly after liftoff. It is expected to return to Port Canaveral for refurbishment early next week.

If schedules hold, the Space Coast will host a doubleheader next week.

On Wednesday, May 18, another SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch the company’s 48th batch of Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center. Because SpaceX has not yet confirmed the existence of this mission, details are limited, but liftoff is expected between 4 and 6 a.m. EDT.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will take Boeing’s Starliner capsule on its second demonstration mission to the International Space Station 36 hours later. The capsule is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 41 at 6:54 p.m. EDT. It is Boeing’s second attempt to reach the International Space Station with an uncrewed capsule after a 2019 test flight failed to meet objectives and had to return to Earth.

NASA chose Boeing and SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station after the space shuttle program ended in mid-2011. So far, SpaceX has transported five crews, while Boeing could transport its first before the end of the year if Thursday’s mission goes well.

Launch Wednesday, May 18

• Rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9
• Mission: 48th Starlink launch
• Launch Time: Early morning TBD
• Launch Pad: 39A at Kennedy Space Center
• Trajectory: Northeast
• Landing: Drone ship
• Weather: Forecast expected Sunday

Launch Thursday, May 19

• Rocket: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
• Mission: Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2
• Launch Time: 6:54 p.m. EDT
• Launch Complex: 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
• Trajectory: Northeast
• Weather: Forecast expected Monday

A hoverboard was once a fictional levitating board used to transport a person from one place to another. As seen in the movies, this is the future to replace all modes of personal and public transportations. Scientists and engineers endeavor to make it a reality, but there come many challenges. An average flying hoverboard has to be lightweight, consume less fuel and should be able to fly for a longer time to cover long-distance travel. There have been a lot of prototypes that became successful at some point, but were not launched commercially because of their limitations being in the developmental stage, the exorbitant price, and pose risks to users.

Some companies are investing a lot of money to make it work publicly. Here are some of the prototypes that had been developed so far:

1. Jet-Powered Hoverboard by Zapata

Franky Zapata always dreamt of flying, but because of his disability of being a color-blind, he was never qualified for being a helicopter pilot. After being disqualified, he didn’t stop there and focused on jet ski racing and later he founded his own jet ski company Zapata Racing. But even after making a career in jet ski business he never gave up on his dream. Using various models of jet engines from an airplane and a platform, he designed EZ-Fly, which was capable of flying 80mph (129kph) at an altitude of 9,000 feet (2,743 meters). Along with the hardware and computer program, Franky developed a steady algorithm to keep the board as steady and safe as possible to fly. This prototype is still at the development stage and costs around $200,000 to $250,000.

2. SLIDE Hoverboard by Lexus

The world-famous Japanese luxury car company, of course, tried their luck in this futuristic innovation. It was originated from a corporate project to develop a premium sedan. Inspired by the movie Back to The Future II, Lexus has announced the Lexus SLIDE hoverboard. It was built for scientific achievement, and not for public sale. This slide relies on Flux Pinning and Meissner effect. And this all worked because of the superconductors inside the board. Superconductors are conductors that have no internal resistance as long as they are kept below a certain temperature. It creates a magnetic field by passing an electrical current between the ground the board. These magnetic forces between the board and ground repel each other and so the board is lifted above the track. It was tested by a pro skateboarder Ross McGouran at a custom-built skate park in Barcelona, Spain.

3. Omni Hoverboard

Catalin Alexandu Duru, a Canadian inventor tested a new type of propeller-based hoverboard prototype and achieve a world record. Omni doesn’t use magnetic field technology and instead, they focused on quadcopter technology. Their startup Mark-1 already made a world record for the longest hoverboard flight and they are already working on Mark-2.  Mark-1 prototype can fly up to 1min 30sec for the distance of 905ft but they are constantly improving their system and technology to last their battery for a longer time. Currently, they are working on flight efficiency and stability until their batteries become powerful enough for commercial use. The only drawback of this propeller-based technology is it makes the hoverboard very noisy.

4. Hendo Hoverboard

Arx Pax, the company behind the Hendo Hoverboard tried to make the futuristic fantasy of riding on a hoverboard across the town. They are mainly focused on harnessing the power of electromagnets in developing their hoverboard technology. The basic premise in this technology is called Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA). It uses disc-shaped magnetic hover engines located at the bottom of the board which works on a custom-made track that allows the board to levitate by using magnetic fields which unfortunately limits its application. Moreover, it’s battery only lasts just a few minutes, and the price for the hoverboard starts at $10,000.