The Curiosity Rover started this year with some remarkable images of small tube-like structures on Mars. The Mahli (Mars Hand Lens Imager) camera acquired the images on Sol 1922 and 1923 (January 01 and 02 2018). The structures are only 1 to 5 mm long and first spotted December 15 2017
. To investigate further the rover later returned to the site.

The possibility of trace fossils were soon put on the table. The origin of these odd features is a question that may not be answered with the technology we have on Mars today. However, most experts is leaning towards a geological process, which is probably a safe bet.

I have made several 3D models from the Curiosity images lately, and gave this one a shot. And I am quite happy with the result.

I used 11 images acquired on Sol 1923 for the model with no pre-processing

. The 11 images were loaded into a professional photogrammetry software to generate the point cloud. After that all images were used to generate the texture for the 3d model.