This is cool and all, and I am super stoked we can do this...but my brain keeps saying, yeah, so what, it's a big rock.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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With pictures like this it's so hard to convince my brain that it's not just a picture of a random boulder taken with flash at night.
I was looking at pictures of Mars' surface from Curiosity with my uncle who is a lunar landing and science denier. He said, "That could be taken at any desert on Earth." I was like NO SHIT! You mean to tell me that other planets have rocks too?!?! No fucking way! What do you expect it to look like?
You and your 6th grade reading level somehow outsmarted two generations of NASA scientists and their massive coverup and lies about space exploration? No, you fucking dunce.
I hope he's not watching David Weiss' content. He keeps showing an image that was taken on earth, modified to look like Mars, and then claims it's directly from NASA's website.
Whenever he's asked for the direct source he says he'll send it over, but never does.
Tell him if they faked it. Russia would not waste a moment to point that out.
They congratulated us. If we faked it, Russia would have faked it first.
It definitely reminds me of a cave.
There are barely visible tiny features that would have eroded away on Earth.
That said, they are barely visible and tiny. If somebody said it's just some weird concretion, I'd completely believe it.
When you think about it, that's kinda exactly what it is. Which is very cool :-D
Just a big random boulder in space amongst a whole solar system of random boulders, taken with a light for illumination because it's dark, yo
I mean, you're not wrong.
Except this specific boulder isn't stuck in earth's gravity well, it's got its own thing going on.
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There's absolutely no sense of scale here.
What we see as rocks, could absolutely be boulders...
We'd tend to error of the side of 'small' but with no fluid (liquid or air) erosion, these could be massive.
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Scientists: Yes, we finally did it! We captured a picture from our probe that touched down on a big rock in space! We are awesome!
Me: Holy shit! That is so cool, you are awesome! What did the rock look like?
Scientists: Like a big fucking rock
Me: Dude, no way!
Don't forget the endless abyss that was pictured too.
Yeah but we can see the endless abyss by looking up any time there isn't too much light around
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I’m not sure why but this fills me with such inconsolable dread. Something about a dead cold rock floating through such vast nothingness.
It rather gives me comfort.
Yeah, and knowing the only reason you can see it is because of the lighting from the robot taking the photo. Otherwise it's just this thing shrouded in darkness flying through space at whatever ridiculously fast speed only to eventually run into something.
You get it. Scary ain’t it.
Not at all. Perhaps I'm weirder than I thought.
This image is ripe for an SCP to be written up based on it.
Imagine being one of the first humans to try to mine one of these, and you feel like you saw something moving in the corner of your eye, just where the light meets the shadow of one of the sharp lumps, but you can't be sure.
Thanks, I hate it. No chance of any sleep tonight.
😄
You're welcome friend <3
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I'm just thinking about all the technical challenges to land a flying metal cereal box on a moving asteroid...
Man, this rocks.
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Not even surprised that a hayabusa would be fast enough to make it to an asteroid.
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Picture from the lander is neat too
https://www.space.com/asteroid-ryugu-survived-major-catastrophe.html
I expected to see more stars. Maybe the exposure was too short for that or something
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Wow, this is even more amazing than I first thought
Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused in space with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018.[11] It surveyed the asteroid for a year and a half and took samples. It left the asteroid in November 2019 and returned the samples to Earth on 5 December 2020 UTC.
Pffft, thats just attic insulation, obv.
My take on it is that it's a lot of fluffy stuff just collected together and eventually mashed down under its own worth, so you aren't far off
Alright, this gives me crazy heebie jeebies. Something about how close that horizon is, combined with the fact that beyond it is just nothing, absolute nothing, for light-years in most directions; hits the buttons for claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia, and thalassophobia at the same time.
I have never felt happy about the fact that I was born too early to go space mining til now. No thanks. Maybe if I get to keep a ton or two of native platinum for myself, otherwise no thanks.
If you can't even make renewable energy harvesting infrastructure with just renewable inputs, which space mining?
Now also imagine the view when you're there and you turn off the light.
Black will be really fucking black and you will only see some stars
Looks like the insulation in my attic.
It super does look like that!
Yep, that checks out, looks like an asteroid
Hayabusa means falcon
That is definitely a pile of dirt. Sweet.
To me... this, this is Hell, Tartarus, Sheol.
looks like utah at night.
so sames?
Amazing pic