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Humans have been see unknown thing on the Earth’s surface of Mars for hundred . Perhaps it ’s because , other thanEarth , Mars is the closest thing in thesolar systemto a habitable planet , or perhaps it ’s simply because it ’s close enough to get a pretty safe look at .
Either way , Earthlings have been fooled time and again by the rocky Martian surface and their own psychology . From spooky , humanoid public figure to books , bears , and beatles , here are some of the most iconic illusions man have spotted on the Red Planet .
A 19th-century drawing of Mars showing “canals” and dark areas.
touch on : In a 1st , NASA ’s Perseverance rover makes breathable atomic number 8 on Mars
1. A Martian ‘book’
Perhaps weary from hunting for evidence of ancient water supply , NASA ’s Curiosity rover took a curt break in April 2023 to riff through the pages of an one-time Martian hardcover lying in the debris of Gediz Vallis . While the strange object may look likea account book with a individual Sir Frederick Handley Page freeze mid - turn , it is in fact just a careen — and a small one at that . The charming minuscule Word - rock metre just 1 in ( 2.5 cm ) wide , concord to NASA . At least it ’s travel - size !
2. A teddy bear’s face
In an paradigm shared January , 2023 by The University of Arizona ( UA ) , what come out to be the face of anenormous Martian teddy bear — complete with two beady eyes , a button nose and an upturned mouth — grin at the camera of NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ( MRO ) . According to UA , the cuddly - wuddly formation is likely just a broken - up hill in the shopping centre of an ancient crater .
Related : NASA may have unknowingly found and killed exotic life on Mars 50 year ago , scientist claims
3. Frozen ‘flowers’
furcate outwards like a diminutive coral , thisdelicate mineral floweris about the close thing to greenery one can find on the Red Planet today . Mineral depositary like these are usual sights across Mars , and result from ancient water mix with ancient sway . Still , it ’s rare to see a deposition that ’s so perfectly flower - like , NASA investigator said . Curiosity blob this flowered characteristic in Feb. 2022 .
4. Martian ‘person’
In 2007 , theMars roverSpirit charm quite a heap in its Red Planet home : what appeared to be a human being wearing a robe and kneeling in prayer . Spirit captured a panoramic view of the tableland called Home Plate , settle in the interior washbasin of the Columbia Hills stove inside Gusev Crater . Of of course , the " homo " in the image is merely a rock , which morphs into human form in our brains because ofpareidolia .
Related : wonder wanderer discovers that evidence of preceding life on Mars may have been erased
5. ‘The face’
It all started back in 1976 , when NASA exhaust an image of an interesting mountain on Mars , call for by the Viking 1 spacecraft , complete with a caption that described the constitution as appearing to have eyes and nostril . More than 30 class later , the " Face on Mars " still inspiresmyths and confederacy theories , with many hoi polloi believing it to be an artificial structure build by an ancient Martian refinement .
From a bird’s - heart view , phantasm on the mountain really do make it bet like a face . From other angles , however , seen in exposure taken by the Mars Express Orbiter and other spacecraft , the deal is clearly just that , and does n’t take care much like a cheek at all .
6. The face… of Ghandi
The 1976 Mars face was just the beginning . With the launching ofGoogle Marsin 2009 , a map program created from compiled artificial satellite images of the major planet , users could swag around the aerofoil of the Red Planet , find all sorts of interesting lumps and extrusion . One such bump , discovered by an Italian man named Matteo Ianneo , looked spookily like Amerind independence activistMahatma Gandhi , who was assassinate in 1948 .
high - result imagery showed the contour to be not a pile or hill , but a pit , which does indeed look a bit like a human head in visibility , though what appear to be an eye and brow in the Google Mars image is less pronounced in the high resolving power picture .
7. Martian ‘animal tracks’
Did foreign creatures once skitter across the surface of Mars , leave fossilized tracks engraft in the rocks ? One researcher made this controversial claim in 2018 , pointing to image of stick - same complex body part , each about the size of a grain of rice , criss - crossing a Martian rock . NASA researchers quick debunked the claims , noting that interchangeable feature are copious on Earth in area where salt become concentrated in urine , such as evaporating lakes . Their presence on Mars is yet more evidence of retiring rivers and lakes on the Red Planet — but still offer no proof that living creatures ever decorate its aerofoil .
8. A bushel of ‘blueberries’
blueberry are not a significant origin of iron when devour on Earth — but thesegeological " blueberry " discovered by NASA ’s chance roveron Mars in 2004 are built differently . These branding iron - rich sphere , milled smooth by plentiful amount of money of water billions of years ago , are some of the early grounds scientist have of Mars once being an incredibly wet globe . Whether they also try expert on cheesecake is a question for succeeding generations to grapple with .
9. Land and sea
In 1784 , Sir William Herschel , a famous British stargazer , wrote that glum area on Mars were oceans and lighter area were land . He speculated that Mars was inhabit by intelligent organism who " probably enjoy a situation exchangeable to our own , " according toNASA . Herschel ’s theory prevailed for a C , with other astronomers take that botany could even be observed in the lighter - colored area that were taken to be land . luckily for Herschel , his other donation to astronomy — which have earned him the pureness of being the namesake of two powerful observatory — were great enough to keep his hypothesis on Martians near the bottom of his biography .
10. A sci-fi forest
In 2001 , seven years before he give way , the famous skill fabrication writer Arthur C. Clarke , co - creator of " 2001 : A Space Odyssey " , herald that he had spotted plot of flora , include trees , in Modern photos of Mars take by the then - orbiting Mars Global Surveyor . " I ’m quite serious when I say , have a really good look at these Modern Mars images , " Clarke said at the time , speaking via phone during the Wernher von Braun Memorial Lecture serial at the Smithsonian ’s National Air and Space Museum . " Something is actually affect and changing with the seasons that indicate , at least , flora . "
The branches that Clarke recall he saw on the Martian open arewhat Mars geologists call " spiders " : They do take care like arm , and they do alter seasonally , but they ’re due to the seasonal thaw of the carbon dioxide chicken feed cap that live at Mars ' poles . When the CO2 ice sublimate turns into a throttle it flows out along paths that look like offset , Live Science antecedently reported .
11. A hairy blue spider
Images taken by aEuropean Space Agency(ESA ) orbiter in 2019 seem to show anenormous hairy spidersprawling out its pegleg across a Martian mess .
The realism is almost cool . These spindly " leg " are in reality the paths of hundreds of tiny tornado , or dust Old Nick , that have pass over the ridge . It ’s not clean why the slew is such a tornado hotspot , but ESA scientists said that the way air masses move around the region might be contributive to the formation of the rubble demon .
12. Or maybe a beetle?
Seeing creepy - crawlies seems to be a melodic theme on Mars . Also in 2019 , William Romoser , a prof emeritus who studies virus in worm and other arthropods made a surprising claim : He said he could seebeetles and other louse , and even reptiles , on the surface of Mars .
Romoser come to this conclusion after examining photograph taken by the NASA Mars rover , which show plenty of vaguely oval , blobby shapes on the Martian Earth’s surface . But pareidolia strike again : What else looks like a vaguely ellipse blob ? Most rocks .
" I do not think there are insect on Mars . The picture that are in that press vent you commit are entirely unconvincing , as they fall within the range ask in zillions of non - insect aim photographed in lowish resolution on a Marscape , " David Maddison , a prof in the consolidative biology department at Oregon State University , told Live Science at the time . " It is vastly more parsimonious to presume the blob are plainly rocks . As has been allege , ' extraordinary claims command over-the-top evidence ' ; those pictures are far , far less than sinful . "
A 19th-century drawing of Mars showing “canals” and dark areas.
13. A cartoon splatter
Finally , something that looks like what it really is . Sometime between July and September 2019 , a space objective — a meteor perhaps , or a shard of comet — hit the southern ice capital of Mars and punctured a thin layer of ice , shooting a cascade of cerise rubble up and out of the hole . The answer is adark red splatthat looks like something a cartoon fictional character might make while running headfirst into a wall . A large camera call HiRISE ( High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ) aboard NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter trance the splat , which is about 0.62 miles ( 1 klick ) across .
14. A green rock with drill holes
Mars , as we all know , is the Red Planet . So what ’s withthis weird cat valium rockdiscovered by the Perseverance rover , and how did it get riddle with slight holes ?
Everyone would like to love . " Is it something weather out of the local bedrock ? , " atweet postedMarch 31 by the rover ’s PR team question . " Is it a piece of Mars plopped into the area from a far - flung impact event ? Is it a meteorite ? Or something else ? "
The rock is about 6 inches ( 15 centimeters ) long and sits in Mars ' Jezero Crater , close to the rover ’s landing place site . The bird of passage has already zapped the rock with a optical maser to vaporize part of it . The vapour cloud will be analyze by the rover ’s cameras and spectrometers to reveal its chemical substance composition . Perhaps we ’ll have an answer to this mystery preferably rather than later .
15. The ‘canals’ of Mars
During Mars ' snug approach to Earth in 1877 , the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli peer through his scope and keep an eye on groove on the Red Planet ’s aerofoil . The Italian password he used for them,“canali , " meaning channels , was translate to " canals"in English , leading many in the English - talk world to conclude that Mars had intelligent life that had build a organisation of waterways .
The theory was expose in the other 20th century , when it was demonstrate that the " canals " were only visual magic : When viewed through poor - calibre telescopes , pointlike feature , such as Mars ' batch and crater , appear to be fall in together by square lines . Later , spectroscopic analytic thinking of the light coming from Mars demonstrate that there was no water supply on its surface .
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A 19th-century drawing of Mars showing “canals” and dark areas.
