Starship Orbiting Mars?

Are we certain that all of the spacecraft orbiting Mars were manufactured on 20th and 21st Century Earth?

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) spotted a feature (arrow) in the skies above Mars that resembles a type of starship known to many from a popular series of television programs and feature-length films.

The picture was taken by the MOC’s blue wide angle camera during an off-nadir spacecraft re-orientation on 27 March 2001. Such re-orientations of the spacecraft around one or more of its major control axes are called slews. The dark area above the cratered surface of Mars is outer space. Between Mars and space is the planet’s thin, carbon dioxide atmosphere. The feature MGS spotted in 2001 is real, but it is not a starship. As is common on Earth, we humans will often recognize shapes formed in the clouds in the sky above us. The starship-shaped features are clouds, most likely of water ice crystals, formed high in the martian atmosphere. The clouds in this case were towering to an altitude of about 60 kilometers (37 miles).

The arrow with the letter “N” indicates the direction toward north. The MOC was pointed toward the east and MGS was traveling northward at the time the image was acquired. Liu Hsin, the larger crater at the bottom center of the main image, is actually circular, but appears elliptical because the spacecraft slewing motion has distorted the image. This crater is about 137 kilometers (85 miles) across. Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in September 1997. The mission continued until contact with the spacecraft was lost in early November 2006.