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Taken by the camera on board the Mars orbiter: like a teddy bear's face
Photo: HANDOUT/AFP
It looks as if a child had drawn the face of a bear: the US space agency Nasa surprised us with a very special shot of Mars.
She posted a photo of a geological formation on the red planet's surface that resembles a smiling "bear's face."
According to the US space agency, the recording was made last month by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its high-resolution HiRISE camera.
"A bear on Mars?" the HiRISE team asked jokingly on Twitter - and also clarified straight away: It is a geological formation that is characterized, among other things, by two craters for the "eyes" and a collapsed hill for the " snout« is formed.
Overall, the formation extends to around two kilometers.
The circle around it is a “circular fracture pattern,” explained the University of Arizona scientists responsible for the HiRISE project.
"Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent," they speculated.
The fracture pattern around it could therefore have been caused by lava or mud deposits.
HiRISE, one of six instruments onboard the orbiter, is taking extremely detailed images of the red planet.
The images help the scientists to map the surface for possible future missions.
Over the past decade, the team has managed to photograph avalanches or spot dark streaks that could be salt water trickling down gullies and craters.
They also found dust devils swirling across the surface of Mars -- as well as a formation closely resembling the famous Starfleet logo from Star Trek.
So far, however, they have not found the little green men, many of whom were once convinced of their existence on Mars.
ani/AFP
