Cnet face of mars1/30/2024 ![]() There must have been a degree of surprise among mission controllers back at the Jet Propulsion Lab when the face appeared on their monitors. An enormous head nearly two miles from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia. NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, snapping photos of possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2, when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. It's still just a rock, but hopefully it'll inspire some fun sci-fi stories about the great Sasquatch of Mars.- Twenty five years ago something funny happened around Mars. Squint and you can imagine the random rock looking a bit like a skull with a round dome and a large eye socket. The image comes from NASA's Curiosity rover from early 2016. UFO enthusiasts imagined a bigger, hairier version of alien life when they spotted what looked like a Sasquatch skull among the landscape debris on the red planet. You might conjure up images of big heads and large, black eyes, or perhaps something with crazy tentacles and sharp teeth. ![]() CBSI/CNET Show More Show Less 44 of66 It's fun to imagine what aliens on Mars might look like if they were real. It's still just a rock formation at heart. Ultimately, the crab creature of Mars is just a fun interplay between light and shadow. However, this particular photo earned itself a measure of infamy when a Facebook group enhanced a close-up of one tiny piece of the picture and unveiled what looked like a weird crab monster hiding out in the shadows. CBSI/CNET Show More Show LessĤ2 of66 43 of66 NASA's Mars Curiosity rover snapped a photo that could have blended in with a hundred other Mars photos in July 2015. The Planetary Society was quick to call the object an optical illusion and another excellent example of pareidolia, the tendency for our minds to assign familiar patterns to random shapes or sounds. One dramatically shaded formation stood out in the form of what looked like a little walking humanoid (either that or Bigfoot).Popular UFO blog UFO Sightings Daily ran with speculation that the rock formation is a female figure likely made by aliens. CBSI/CNET Show More Show Less 32 of66 NASA's Spirit rover delivered an image in 2007 showing a view of craggy little rock formations across the surface of Mars. NASA described it as "likely benign," which should leave the door open just enough for us to image the presence of a human-hungry alien race hiding out on the red planet. ![]() This close-up image comes from the rover's ChemCam and helped NASA scientists determine the origin of the Martian interloper. It was just a shred of plastic from the rover itself. Thus, large fossils are not likely." CBSI/CNET Show More Show Lessģ0 of66 31 of66 That weird shiny object spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover had an anticlimactic explanation. NASA has something to say about the possibility of fossilized bones and animals on Mars: "Mars likely never had enough oxygen in its atmosphere and elsewhere to support more complex organisms. The rock's shape and the lighting at the time of the photo combine to create the fishy look. NASA's Curiosity rover caught this unusual formation on camera and UFO and alien fans got excited about it. Planetary scientist Veronica Bray analyzed the dune image and told Gizmodo the code works out to read "NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE !!" CBSI/CNET Show More Show Less 8 of66 There's a fish-shaped rock on Mars, but there's no actual fish there. Unfortunately, the code spells out gibberish. The dark, raised areas are a series of dunes that look a lot like the dots and dashes of Morse code. CBSI/CNET Show More Show LessĦ of66 7 of66 This view from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, snapped in February 2016, shows some strange formations on the surface of the red planet. You can see why some people thought the face was an alien-built monument on Mars.First published August 4, 2015. It even looks a bit like a young Elvis Presley. If you have a creative mind, it's easy to see it as having two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a weird hairdo. What got everyone excited is the face-like formation in the upper center of the picture. It's just a goofy rock formation.Join us as we explore some famous Mars mysteries and the scientific explanations behind them.NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter zipped near Mars in 1976 and took this now iconic image of the surface. A recent image from the NASA Perseverance rover generated plenty of jokes about what looks like a rear end. Our imaginations turn rock formations into fish and cosmic rays into alien communications. That's why it's so much fun to speculate about unusual objects seen in images of Mars. The HiRise camera team later enhanced the brightness of the image to get a better look at what was happening down in the dark. ![]() 1 of66 NASA's MRO stared into the abyss in January 2020 when it caught sight of this inky pit.
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