Face on Mars Gets a Make-Over

Alien54 writes "ESA's Mars Express has obtained images of the Cydonia region, site of the famous 'Face on Mars.' using the High Resolution Stereo Camera. After multiple attempts to image the Cydonia region from April 2004 until July 2006 were frustrated by altitude and atmospheric dust and haze, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board Mars Express finally obtained, on 22 July, a series of images that show the famous 'face' on Mars in unprecedented detail, with a ground resolution of approximately 13.7 metres per pixel."

Comments

Other cool facts about the mission

[YA_Python_dev]

Mars Express contains 7 different scientific instruments and, amongs other things, it has already:

• discovered aurorae on Mars;
• transmitted back gigabytes of beautiful images with a resolution of up to 2 meters/pixel;
• discovered a huge subsurface water ice lake, with a thickness of 1.8 km and an extension of hundreds of kms;
• collaborated with NASA, receiving data from the Mars rovers and transmitting it back to Earth (yes: they use the same communication protocol!).

Re:You think this will quiet the conspiracy nuts?

[DrXym]

Yes, but Richard Hoagland wouldn't sell any books if he just said it was just a rock formation. No, it's a CONSPIRACY and will be as long as there are people stupid enough to believe him.

There are many faces on Earth too

[mrcgran]

For instance, see this one in Peru:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-16.341133,-71.9652 69&spn=0.155239,0.240704&t=k&hl=en

Still looks convincingly face-like to me...

[dpbsmith]

Even in more detail and from more angles, I find it still looksat least as much like a face as the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire, the image of the Virgin Mary in a fogged thermopane window in Milton Hospital, Massachusetts.

It also looks at least as much like a face as human-constructed faces that have been ravaged by time, such as the Sphinx, or Michael Jackson.