Martian sand dune looks like Starfleet logo

New images taken by NASA’s MRO HiRise camera show a sand dune formation with a rather familiar shape.

The photographs, which were captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have prompted some rather tongue-in-cheek references to Star Trek’s iconic insignia.

“Enterprising viewers will make the discovery that these features look conspicuously like a famous logo,” the HiRise team at the University of Arizona wrote in a Tweet.

Star Trek references aside, this intriguing formation and others like it have been helping scientists to learn more about the Red Planet’s atmosphere, temperature and topography.

This, in turn, will also help NASA to better plan out future manned missions.