A “red herring” refers to something such as a clue that is deliberately meant to be distracting or misleading. It is mostly used in detective stories to refer to false leads that investigators waste time pursuing. The expression comes from the name given to dried smoked herring fish, which is called red herring because the smoking process had the effect of turning it red.
In the 17th century, red herring was mostly consumed by members of the lower classes. Hunters often used their hounds to hunt for small animals, such as hares. The problem was that these hounds would sometimes catch animals that belonged to poor farmers out in the country instead of wild ones. To protect their animals from hunters and their hounds, the farmers would hide a red herring deep in the woods. The hounds would pursue the strong scent of the red herring over long distances instead of looking for prey, and the hunters would be disappointed to find a red herring at the end of their trek.
Explanation: What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn’t human? Then you might be the Opportunity rover exploring Mars. Opportunity explored the Red Planet from 2004 to 2018, finding evidence of ancient water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System. Pictured here in 2004, Opportunity looks opposite the Sun into Endurance Crater and sees its own shadow. Two wheels are visible on the lower left and right, while the floor and walls of the unusual crater are visible in the background. Caught in a dust storm in 2018, Opportunity stopped responding, and NASA stopped trying to contact it in 2019 and declared the ground-breaking mission, originally planned for only 92 days, complete.
