Mars Bear! NASA Orbiter Captures Image of a Ursine Face on Red Planet | WeatherBug
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Mars Bear! NASA Orbiter Captures Image of a Ursine Face on Red Planet

February 1, 2023
By Cover Media
Scientists have found an unexpected discovery on the surface of Mars: a formation resembling the face of a bear.

 A camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, captured an image of the unusual geological feature in December. 

 The University of Arizona, which developed the camera with Ball Aerospace, shared the image on 25 January 2023. 

 A circular fracture pattern on the Martian surface shapes the head, while two craters resemble eyes. A V-shaped collapsed structure creates the illusion of the nose of a bear. 

 "The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater," staff at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory said. "Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?"

 It isn't the first time scientists have found photos from outside of Earth with an eerie resemblance to entities on this planet. Humans have a knack for recognising images or patterns where they don't exist, a phenomenon known as pareidolia. 

 In 1997, scientists discovered a large rock on Mars they named "Pooh Bear", and in 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft spotted a mesa that resembled a human face, nearly two miles from end to end, on a region of Mars called Cydonia.

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Image: ​Scientists have found an unexpected discovery on the surface of Mars: a formation resembling the face of a bear. (Cover Media)