Anyone strolling by the Mars Society’s Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah, in February would have been baffled to see two men in spacesuits bouncing around while pointing cellphones at rocks.
No, they hadn’t taken leave of their senses. The pair were testing out an imaging algorithm designed to automatically pinpoint areas of geological interest on future crewed or robotic missions to the Red Planet. These might include unusual rock formations or signs of organic matter that could indicate life. The algorithm should give astronauts the eyes of a trained human geologist – though, for now, it is fed its pictures via a regular Nokia camera-phone.