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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."
But seriously, it is the first goal of the Mars Orbiter: I guess I would rather see something more than just regular images come from a mission. Right now, I can see all these things on the ESA's site that help the user see all these pictures of Mars but I don't see any maps of mineral composition, atmospheric movement, etc. I've seen pictures, these are some great high quality images with 3D detail that are great screensaver material. But, for the love of science, when do we get the rest of the data from the mission -- you know, the stuff that is, like, going to alter the way we view Mars? Is the public never going to see these results?
My work here is dung.
If that's meant to look like a face, it's a hella ugly one.
I doubt it......the Roswell types will say that the image was doctored to distort the truth bla bla bla. It is a formation of ROCKS....period. Same as the "old man on the mountain" in Georgia. Heck, as a kid, you ever see "things" in clouds?
I still say it looks like Al Gore.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Either I'm missing it or martian faces are anatomically distict from the faces of human kind (and that of president Bush). Can somebody please do a redline?
...I really hope this is a joke. Otherwise, try reading at least the first sentence of the summary. Here's a hint: the ESA isn't part of NASA.
Firstly, this is done by ESA (European Space Agency) and is not a NASA mission.
Secondly, its an orbiting space platform and has nothing to do with rovers (unless you mean the ill fated Beagle 2 which was carried on this mission).
But having corrected all that, you are right its a job well done.
liqbase
This sort of information could be a death blow to conspiracy theories and the end of wild speculation as to the face's true origins and thus keep movies like John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, Red Planet and Mission to Mars from being made!
Oh wait, that's a good thing.
Errrm, nevermind.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I like the "other" face on Mars better. It's a crater with rocks shaped like eyes and a smile: http://roger-browne.com/weblog/2006/03/17/google-m ars-and-the-happy-face/
Paid Q&A/Research
See http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html for a definition. A commentary on this particular image (along with some wicked cool visual illusions) is at http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_face_on_mars/inde x.html
Please excuse me, I have to return to searching my toast for the Virgin Mary now.
Yawn. Seen it all before. There are some conspiracy nutters who think theres something like that here on earth too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore.
Mars Express contains 7 different scientific instruments and, amongs other things, it has already:
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
The world needs to know!
In case of slashdotting: :-o
So when are they releasing Google Mars?
For instance, see this one in Peru:
2 69&spn=0.155239,0.240704&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-16.341133,-71.965
When looked at from a particular angle, with particular lighting, then yes, it can look like a human face. But pictures shown from other angles or with different lighting don't look anything like a human face.
Heck, if you get the lighting right and go from just-so an angle, even Keith Richards seems to have a human face.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
What's wrong with you people?
Are we even looking at the same picture?
Look, on the near side is the chin, up from there is the nose, up from there are the other two noses and to the right of these is the telepathy patch.
You people are just too cynical for your own good.
some people claim to have seen iesous(jesus, iesus, claims vary) on the very surface of earth http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=k&ll=-16.33701 3,-71.959763&spn=0.075447,0.113811&t=k
The human mind got some imprinted patterns, christians will see what they want to see, reptile sentients will see the holy Lizard king.
Nothing new under the olde sun,
have a nice day
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Groucho Marx
It's hard to actually work out where the "face" is on the new, high-quality images - they show a lot more area and they're not taken at the same angle. I put a post on my blog with just the part of the image that shows the face, you might find it useful for comparisons.
So.. it has come to this
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The only way we can tell for sure that these aren't articificial is actually to go there and see for ourselves. You cannot dismiss the apparently face-like features of the formation as mere tricks of the light or simulacra until you've discounted all the alternatives. As we cannot determine it's not an articificial structure from mere imagery, we have to go there and investigate in person (not that is gonna be forthcoming anytime soon).
An earthly comparison
In Peru there's a place that is dominated by huge hills which dwarf the surrounding landscape. From a far these look like any other hill in an arid desert environment. However, closer inpsection reveals them to be huge man-made pyramids which have been so badly eroded over the centuries they no longer look articificial at all. They are made of hundreds of thousands of mud bricks. But the culture which built them is no longer around.
Now, suppose they had built just one of these giant structures but in the shape of human face . Given the absence of the people who built it and of any other evidence there was anyone there to build it anyway, and having been eroded for centuries, wouldn't it now look entirely natural, and any facial resemblance entirely co-incidental. Alas, it was only by being up close that its nature was determined.
And as it is with the Pyramids of the Moche, so it is with Cydonia. We're going to have to go there and see for ourselves. We might all just be surprised.
I never realised before that it was possible to fail a Rorschach test.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Shows what you know. We WERE on Mars 15 years ago. In fact, we are there now. Who do you think wipes off the solar panels on the rovers after a dust storm?
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
Yes but is there hope for Micheal Jackson to ever have a human face?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.