Technologies

Reclining ‘alien figure’ in NASA Mars rover image is really a rock

I think it looks like shirtless Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park.

This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.

Combing through NASA Mars rover images looking for fun shapes in the rocks is an enjoyable pastime, but it’s important to remember those fish and faces and posteriors are just cool chunks of the landscape. Sometimes, goofy rock sightings leak into wider media, as with recent news of an «alien» seen in an image snapped by NASA’s Perseverance rover. Let’s break it down.

Scott Waring, who runs a UFO-focused site, highlighted a rover view with a flat rock with a shape on top of it, suggesting it was proof of life on the red planet. As a reminder, Mars is a horrifically inhospitable place and scientists haven’t even found proof of ancient microbial life there, though explorers like Perseverance are looking for evidence.

Waring spotted the rock in a panoramic image posted to Gigapan. I traced that back to the original raw images taken by Perseverance in April 2021. Waring sees an «alien figure,» a small person in a dark suit reclining and watching the rover. By zooming in to where it gets all fuzzy, I can see where that interpretation comes from.

In my imagination, the «figure» looks like a tiny sculptural representation of that famous Jurassic Park scene where sweaty Jeff Goldblum is reclining like he’s at a boudoir photo shoot.

I don’t blame Waring for the excitement. I get positively giddy when I see a neat Martian rock (here’s looking at you, butt rock). And I’d be thrilled if a day came when scientists found intelligent alien life traipsing across Mars. But photos of nifty rock shapes aren’t proof of life, past or present, on Mars.

There’s something beautiful in the human desire to find familiar objects, faces and figures in random rocks on Mars. I see it as a form of optimism, of hope that we’re not the only planet inhabited by brainy beings. So please keep seeing wild things on Mars, but let us also know them for what they really are.

Technologies

The FCC Just Approved Charter’s $34.5B Cox Purchase. Here’s What It Means for 37M Customers

Technologies

Spotify Expands Into Audiobook Rankings With Weekly Charts

The feature is available to both free users and Premium subscribers. Wuthering Heights is reaching the heights on both the US and UK charts.

If you’re a Spotify user, you may be familiar with features like the year-end summary Wrapped, as well as your daily usage stats. Now, the service has a new popularity chart tracking audiobooks.

Spotify’s audiobook charts are now available to free and Premium users within the service’s Audiobooks hub. While only Premium users receive 15 hours of audiobook listening per month, the company offers a larger selection of titles you can buy.

US charts and UK charts are both available now.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services for 2026

Spotify says that the audiobook charts will help customers discover new and popular titles in real time.

«As we’ve proven with Music and Podcasts Charts, when content is easier to access, discover, and enjoy, the demand grows,» said Duncan Bruce, Spotify’s director of audiobook partnerships and licensing, in a statement on Friday.

Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022, and has since added features such as the AI catchup tool Recaps and PageMatch, which lets you swap more easily between a printed book and the audio version.

Spotify Premium currently costs $13 a month and includes more than 100 million songs, as well as audiobooks. Spotify Premium is currently CNET’s Editors’ Choice for best music streaming service.

The current US audiobooks chart lists Emily Brontë’s romantic classic Wuthering Heights as the top listen, followed by James Clear’s self-help book Atomic Habits and Freida McFadden’s psychological thriller The Housemaid. Audiobook popularity is also broken down by genre, with charts for romance, mystery and thriller books, self-help, science fiction and fantasy, biography and memoir, business and careers, teen and young adult, religion and spirituality, history, and parenting and relationships.

Powered by its blockbuster movie adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Wuthering Heights also leads the overall chart for the UK.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 28, #523

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 523, for Saturday, Feb. 28.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. Chicagoans and southerners, you might have an advantage, at least with the blue and purple categories. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fore!

Green group hint: Take me out to the ballgame.

Blue group hint: Alma mater.

Purple group hint: Bear down.