NASA rover finds 11 fragments and a 1984 Pontiac Fiero badge on Mars: will you trust the £2bn clue?

Red dust, stray metal and a flicker of nostalgia have set social media alight, leaving engineers restless and fans curious.

Today, images beamed back by NASA’s Perseverance have sparked a new mystery around several machined-looking fragments scattered across Jezero crater, including a small oval plate that looks uncannily like a 1984 Pontiac Fiero badge.

What the rover actually saw

Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z recorded a cluster of bright shards protruding from wind-smoothed regolith near a shallow ripple field. SuperCam followed with short laser bursts and returned spectral signatures consistent with aluminium-rich alloy and a thin polymer residue. PIXL mapped trace magnesium and silicon, while SHERLOC spotted carbon-bearing smudges that could be either plastic ageing or natural organics bound to dust.

Engineers logged 11 distinct pieces. Two look like folded sheet, one resembles a perforated bracket, and one — the most debated — mirrors the proportions of an early Fiero emblem. The geometry appears stamped, with a clean outer edge and a darker core where the coating has flaked.

Early readings point to aluminium and a coated polymer, a combination common in Earth-made aerospace parts — and in some car trim from the 1980s.

The ‘Fiero’ whispers and why people care

The 1984 Pontiac Fiero launched as a mid-engined two-seater with composite body panels over a steel spaceframe. It wore a distinctive crest and script, often chromed or painted. On first glance, the rover’s oval fragment could pass for such trim, especially in low-angle light that exaggerates bevels and borders.

Car enthusiasts recognised the outline, posted side-by-sides, and the theory snowballed. Within hours, the claim mutated online: not just a Fiero, but a rocket-engined Fiero. The leap makes for a punchy headline. It also raises a serious question for scientists: why do familiar shapes appear in a hostile landscape, and what do the instruments actually say?

Three leading explanations

Mission teams treat every shiny object with the same disciplined checklist. They weigh engineering origins first, then natural geology, then the long tail of unlikely scenarios. Here’s where the current debate sits:

• Descent-stage debris: Perseverance’s sky crane crashed several kilometres away, shedding thermal blankets, shrouds and brackets that the rover has already photographed elsewhere.
• Altered meteorite: Iron-rich meteorites on Mars often weather into smooth, reflective forms and can trap thin films of silica or salts that glint like coating.
• Pareidolia: The human brain hunts patterns; an oval with a shadow ridge can look like a badge even when it is a bent corner of a panel.

There is no evidence of a car on Mars. The likeliest source remains the rover’s own descent hardware, carried by winds and polished by sand.

How scientists will test the claim

Teams will prioritise a tighter dataset over hot takes. Expect new stereo pairs to nail the fragment’s true thickness and curvature. Mastcam-Z can refine reflectance curves to distinguish paint from mineral varnish. If the rover can safely approach, PIXL will scan a finer grid for alloy composition down to microns, and SHERLOC will check for specific polymers such as polyimide or epoxy common in space blankets and adhesive films.

Navigation cameras will sweep for a debris trail back towards the descent-stage crash zone. Wind modelling can simulate a seasonal conveyor belt that shuffles light pieces into Jezero’s subtle troughs. If the trail connects, the badge story fades. If it does not, engineers will widen the search and compare with the parachute and fairing fragments catalogued earlier in the mission.

Why a Pontiac on Mars makes little sense

Start with physics. To reach Mars, any payload needs Earth escape, a transfer burn and a safe entry into the Martian atmosphere. The energy budget runs to tens of thousands of metres per second in cumulative velocity change. No “rocket-engined car” — in the sense of a road car with bolted thrusters — comes close. Even purpose-built record cars barely survive seconds of firing on Earth, and they never leave the atmosphere.

Add planetary protection. Agencies apply strict rules to prevent biological contamination both ways. Unlicensed launches carrying a modified 1980s coupé would trigger international alarms long before ignition. Nothing like that has happened.

Then consider materials. Fiero body panels used sheet-moulded composite and plastic trim. On Mars, extreme cold cycles, UV and ionising radiation would embrittle plastics fast. Chromed plastics pit and peel. A stray oval glint might persist, but only as a ragged scrap — not an intact badge with crisp script.

So what is that badge-shaped thing?

The most sober reading points back to familiar kit. Thermal blankets carry aluminised films bonded to fibre mesh. Edge protectors and tie-down brackets often use rounded profiles with rolled lips, producing oval outlines when broken. A sliver with polymer residue and a bright face fits that story neatly.

Geology still has a voice. Mars hosts iron–nickel meteorites that break along clean planes. Salt crusts can varnish them. Under low sun, a fractured nodule can mimic embossing. A few more images at different times of day will tell you whether highlights come from shape or coating.

New frames, new angles and a proper chemical readout will settle whether the “badge” is hardware, rock or wishful thinking.

What the numbers say so far

Preliminary measurements from image scaling put the oval at roughly 48–60 mm along its long axis, with an exposed thickness of about 2–3 mm. Reflectance sits higher than the surrounding basaltic grains, with a narrow specular flash that hints at a treated surface. The nearest three fragments lie within 1.2 metres, suggesting a common source and a short transport path.

What you can look for next

Raw images usually arrive daily. Watch for close-ups that reveal fasteners, weave patterns, or layered edges — the calling cards of man-made gear. If you spot evenly spaced perforations, that strengthens the descent hardware case. If the object shows grain-boundary pits and fusion crust, the meteorite file stays open.

If Perseverance caches a sample from the site, the debate will pause until a future return mission can test it in a clean lab. That programme faces cost pressure and tight schedules, so teams will only cache if the fragment helps answer bigger questions about Martian materials and contamination pathways.

Helpful context to read the images like a pro

Pareidolia nudges all of us. A crest, a script, a grille — the mind stitches them from shadows. To push back, look for manufacturing tells: symmetric radii, identical hole spacing, layered laminates and predictable alloy composition. Instruments on the rover can see many of those tells, even when the camera tricks the eye.

If the object turns out to be descent debris, it still earns attention. Tracing how light material travels in Martian winds helps crews plan future landings, route choices and contamination control. It also teaches designers how blankets and fairings tear, fold and migrate after impact — knowledge that can save money and reduce risk on the next mission.