The winds of Mars have scoured the rocks into some very strange shapes, apparently, but this one is a humdinger! The handle seems to extend well into the rock on which it's resting.

Some Martian is probably looking all over hell for that damned spoon, now!

what I want to know is how a natural formation that is that skinny (compared to its length) can extend out that far unsupported on one end without collapsing.

What is the scale on that picture?

almost 3 times the height of Everest.

The peak of Olympus Mons is ~85,000 feet high (above the Martian plains) versus Everest at ~29,000 feet.

EDIT:

Also, the scale is such that the "spoon" is probably only 3 or 4 inches long at most.


I remember a previous Martian picture that made it look like a small weird creature was on the side of a rock. The picture made it look big, but the actual object was about 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch.

Even at reduced gravity the weight of a large thin outcropping over thousands of years should eventually weaken it and cause a stress failure.

...just the top of the rock. The shadow of the spoon part is the shadow at the bottom of the slightly deform rock (at that point)

Rarely the sometimes sketchy communications between my literal and visual mind is a good thing... not often however.

I see more birds in this picture than kitchen implements.

"Who ya gonna' believe, me or your lying eyes?"

who knew they had spoons?

Where the base of the 'spoon' extends past the red circle, just below it is what looks to be a parallel line of the same sort of material.

Makes me start thinking of ribs.

The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed,
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Now we know where the dish and spoon ran away to. Some of that stuff lying around in the picture is what's left of the dish.

What object do we look of next? Cup and saucer? Beach ball?

Jimmy Buffett's lost shaker of salt