Jeremy Clarkson would be proud: Nasa rover really DID draw a 'gentleman sausage' on Mars

Reddit users spotted unfortunate pattern in picture posted on Nasa website



Part of a huge panoramic shot taken by Nasa's Spirit rover in March 2004



Programmed to spin in tight circles to test terrain and find new routes



It is a stunt Jeremy Clarkson would be proud of.

A Nasa exploration rover trawling Mars for signs of life has left behind an interesting sign of its own.

The hilarious image was spotted on Nasa's website, where mischievous engineers had even placed it on one of the mission's homepages.



Resemblance: The tyre tracks left by Nasa's rove Spirit in 2004 bear an uncanny resemblance to male genitalia

It shows tracks left on the red planet by Spirit, one of Nasa's twin rovers, as they wheeled across its surface in 2004.

The picture was shared on Reddit with the caption: 'Mars Rover = $800m, Team to operate = $1bn. Drawing a penis on the surface of another planet = priceless.'

The image proved so popular that Nasa's servers were initially unable to cope with demand.

However, it appeared they soon got the joke, uploading a higher resolution version - although no official comment on the picture has been made.

Although the rover's on Mars are able to drive themselves around, engineers of earth control their movements via 'satnav' maps which are periodically uploaded to the rovers.

The rovers, along with the more recent arrival Curiosity, often turn in tight circles or perform unusual movements as engineers test their systems or change direction.

It it believed the image became popular as a joke among engineers which has now been uncovered, as the image appears on an official page at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.



You've drawn what? Reddit users say Nasa updated its site (seen right) soon after the image was spotted to show a higher quality version (left)

The image forms part of a large panorama captured by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit nearly a year ago is called Spirit's "Legacy" panorama.

It combines many frames acquired during Spirit's 59th through 61st martian days, or sols (March 3 to 5, 2004) from a position about halfway between the landing site and the rim of "Bonneville Crater."

The location is within the transition from the relatively smooth plains to the more rocky and rugged blanket of material ejected from Bonneville by the force of the impact that dug the crater.

Spirit's 'Legacy' panorama. It combines many frames acquired during Spirit's 59th through 61st martian days, or sols (March 3 to 5, 2004) from a position about halfway between the landing site and the rim of 'Bonneville Crater,' Nasa says. The panorama spans 360 degrees and consists of images obtained in 78 individual pointings. The panorama spans 360 degrees and consists of images obtained in 78 individual pointings.

The camera took images though 5 different filter at each pointing. This mosaic is an approximately true-color rendering generated using the images acquired through filters centered at wavelengths of 750, 530, and 480 nanometers. The six-wheeled, solar-powered robots were launched on Mars almost a decade ago to scour the surface of the planet and beam information back to Nasa teams on Earth. The Spirit rover became stuck at the end of 2009, and its last communication with Earth was in 2010. Opportunity continues to traverse the planet.

Opportunity: The six-wheeled robotic rovers were launched almost a decade ago to investigate the surface of Mars

Robotic: Opportunity, left, is still traversing the planet's surface, while Spirit, seen right in a Nasa image, ran into difficulty on Mars in 2009









