Federal Lawsuit Filed To Force NASA To Look More Closely At The Mars “Jelly Donut”

For many people, the appearance of the mysterious rock in a picture from Mars was a great subject for breakfast discourse on whether it was kicked up by the Rover Opportunity or an alien creature with the world’s most unimpressive evolutionary progression. Rhawn Joseph, however, believes that he can force NASA to do more than speculate. Joseph is miffed that NASA will not take a closer look at the rock and has gone to court in Northern California to force the agency to investigate further. The rock is commonly called the “Jelly donut” due to its shape but scientists at NASA have named it “Pinnacle Island.”

Joseph is a self-described astrobiologist and is irate at the refusal of NASA to look more closely at the object. The photo was taken on January 8th or Sol 3540 (the 3,540th Martian solar day since the Mars rover Opportunity landed) and shows a rock that was not there in the photos taken on Sol 3536.

Joseph is demanding an order for NASA to “scientifically examine and investigate a putative biological organism.”

The filing rails against a position of the NASA that Joseph describes as “inexplicable, recklessly negligent and bizarre.” He insists that “[a]ny intelligent adult, adolescent, child, chimpanzee, monkey, dog or rodent with even a modicum of curiosity would approach, investigate and closely examine a bowl-shaped structure which appears just a few feet in front of them when 12 days earlier they hadn’t noticed it.”

However, NASA did take a look at the object and has largely concluded that it is a rock and likely unsettled by the Rover itself on a recent turn.

In the filing (which can be read here), Joseph writes:

Petitioner magnified images of specimen Sol 3540, taken on and after Mars’ day Sol 3540, and detected the presence of structures within and upon the top of the bowl-shaped specimen which resemble “paraphyses” and miniature fruiting bodies (Exhibit A). Parapheses are spore-producing tentacle-like growths typical of Apothecium. The Court, upon examining the pictorial evidence, is reminded that NASA refused to release high definition, high resolution photos, and published only very low resolution photos taken at a distance, and all of which appear to be slightly out-of-focus.

The scientific challenges for Joseph however pale in comparison to the legal challenges. He states now legal authority for ordering an agency to make such a decision which is left to its discretion and scientific judgment. In the meantime, he demands that the court direct the Rover team to investigate — effectively a federal court ordering relief on a different planet. Then he asks for various actions, including the following:

NASA must give the petitioner
A) the authority to act as an observer at the rover command facility to insure that the Court’s orders are carried out in good faith, and B)the authority to appoint two NASA astrobiologists to the rover team. 31.If the organism is biological, NASA must publicly acknowledge that the discovery was made by the Petitioner and must ensure that Petitioner appears as first author on and has final editorial approval of the first 6 scientific articles published or submitted for publication by NASA employees which discuss and present this discovery.

You may not be surprised to learn that this is a pro se complaint. Even without the hyperbole, such an action has virtually no chance for success in court. If Joseph is longing for a closer look at the jelly donut, he will have better luck at his local Dunkin’ Donuts than NASA.