The ``Face on Mars" at Cydonia: Natural or Artificial?
Abstract
3-D contours, bilateral symmetry and location on the former Martian equator led to suspicions that the so-called ``Face" in the Cydonia region of Mars might be an artifact. New high-resolution images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft have now been processed. Using height information from Viking imagery, MGS photos can be ortho-rectified to show the view as it would have appeared from overhead -- quite different from the view actually seen as the spacecraft passed far to the west, especially in raw, unprocessed imagery. In the properly processed, reconstructed view, we can again locate the features that appeared to portray eyes, nose, mouth, and enclosure in the Viking imagery. Remarkably, secondary facial characteristics not previously seen (eyebrow, pupil, nostrils, lips) now also appear, each with the correct relative size, shape, location, and orientation. Moreover, no background of similar features exists that would allow us to choose just those that fit the impression of a face. Although the original finding of a face-like mesa is a posteriori and therefore lacking in statistical significance, these new features fulfill a priori predictions of the artifact hypothesis, and are therefore not so easily dismissed. Other anomalous objects and surface markings in the vicinity reinforce this conclusion. These circumstances are so unlikely to arise by chance that the highest priority should be attached to obtaining additional images of the entire Cydonia region.
- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #30
- Pub Date:
- December 1998
- Bibcode:
- 1998DPS....30.5531V