NASA’s Mars rovers have been exploring the surface of Mars for years, looking for interesting finds that reveal the planet’s mysterious past. The Perseverance and Curiosity rovers are also taking lots of photos. Sometimes the obtained images of the Red Planet show something that resembles familiar objects, such as fruits, household items, animals, or even faces.
A recent photo taken by the Perseverance rover in the Jezero crater on Mars shows a group of rocks, among which one has a remarkable resemblance to a human face. This stone, lying on its side, resembles a profile with clear outlines of eyes, nose and mouth. Although the appearance is somewhat distorted, the human features are recognizable without doubt.
Perseverance is now exploring a region in the crater that once was probably covered by water. A photo of the “face” was taken on September 27, 2024 using a camera mounted on the rover’s mast. Mars is known for its bizarre rock shapes due to volcanic activity, wind erosion, and once-existing water flows. Some debris also came from asteroid impacts, as the planet’s thin atmosphere provides little or no protection to its surface from space objects.
Perseverance’s interesting discoveries regularly capture the public’s attention. All because the prospect of seeing familiar images in unusual shapes is called pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon where our brains interpret random patterns as something familiar and meaningful. It is because of this effect that people see faces or familiar objects in rocks on other planets.
Interest in Martian “faces” has a long history. In 1976, the Viking-1 spacecraft photographed the Cydonia region, where one of the rocks resembled a human face. This gave rise to numerous theories about the existence of an ancient civilization on Mars. However, later studies showed that it was just a play of light and shadow on an ordinary hill.
Martian images continue to provoke people’s imagination, making us wonder about possible mysteries hidden on the Red Planet. But sometimes the mysteries turn out to be nothing more than an illusion of our own perception.
Earlier we reported on how a bear face was spotted on Mars.
According to NASA
