#FACE OF MARS FULL#

The THEMIS team (Odyssey mission) created a great feature page that describes the geology of the region. This is froman image with 13.7 meters/pixel resolution Select herefor more about how the data was processed.Д®ven better view from an image with 1.56 meter/pixel resolution taken on April 8, 2001:ДЄ little perspective of the 'Face' in its surroundings of the Cydonia Region from the Mars Express spacecraft on September 21, 2006.

#FACE OF MARS FULL#

The full image covers an area 2.7 miles (4.4 km) wide and 25.7 miles(41.5 km) long. The picture has a resolution of 14.1 feet (4.3 meters) per pixel,making it ten times higher resolution than the best previous image of the feature, which was taken by theViking Mission in the mid-1970's. The'morning' sun was 25ВЎ above the horizon. At that time,the 'Face', located at approximately 40.8ВЎ N, 9.6ВЎ W, was 275 miles (444 km) from the spacecraft. The picture was acquired 375 seconds after the spacecraft's 220th close approach to Mars. The images shown here were subsequentlyprocessed at MSSS.

The image was processed at the MalinSpace Science Systems (MSSS) facility 9:15 AM and the raw image immediately transferred to the JetPropulsion Laboratory (JPL) for release to the Internet. The image was transmitted to Earth on Sunday, and retrieved fromthe mission computer data base Monday morning (6 April 1998). 'The Face On Mars', penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Al Williamson. A synopsis of The Face on Mars story can be found towards the bottom of this linked web page, (click this 'stargate' ). The Face on Mars was published in a comic titled Race for the Moon. Here it is:Д¬aption: Shortly after midnight Sunday morning (5 April 1998 12:39 AM PST), the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft successfully acquired a high resolution image of the 'Faceon Mars' feature in the Cydonia region. In fact it comes from a comic book published in September 1958. The picture was takenfrom a range of 1,873 kilometers (1,162 miles).Д¬onspiracy theorists weren't satisfied and NASA felt enough pressure to have the Mars GlobalSurveyor take a much better (higher-resolution) look at the feature. The feature is1.5 kilometers (one mile) across, with the sun angle at approximately 20 degrees.

Planetary geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural processes. Shadows in the rock formation give the illusion of a nose andmouth. Bit errors comprise part of one of the 'eyes' and 'nostrils' on the eroded rock that resemblesa human face near the center of the image. The speckled appearance of the image isdue to missing data, called bit errors, caused by problems in transmission of the photographic data fromMars to Earth. and both US and Russian Mars space probes keep disappearing, including the Mars Observer, lost in 1993 on orbital insertion, and most recently (1999) the Mars Climate Orbiter, just as it, too, entered Mars orbit.Д¬learly NASA is not so careless.Here is the image that started it all off! NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft photographed this region in the northern latitudes of Mars on July 25,1976 while searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander. Actually the new picture looks a heck of a lot like Neil Armstrong's bootprint on the surface of the moon. Seen from the new angle, the features that make up the face are clearly geological, and no artifact exists. These shots, taken from another angle, showed the 'face' as seen from 165 km to one side at a total distance of about 450 km. NASA rolled the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft into position on Apto take a few shots of the region. Nonetheless it was quickly seized upon by sensationalists, tabloids, conspiracy theorists and others as an 'alien artifact.' All this was great fun, and NASA decided in 2001 that another picture of the region would be in order. NASA explained the image as merely an artifact of light, shadow and the human desire to pattern match ( Pareidolia). The overall picture is riddled with small circular drop-outs caused by transmission errors, one of which puts a 'nostril' in the proper spot along the ridgeline that forms the 'nose'. The right half of the 'face' is in shadow, which prevents us from judging symmetry, but the effect is striking and uncanny. More properly it resembles a simple facial mask, with one eye, a nose, a mouth with slightly parted lips and a chin. 5km) across, which looks very clearly like a human face. One image of this region of eroded rock, buttes and mesas shows a peculiar feature about one mile (1. As part of this search it photographed the Cydonia region in the northern latitudes of Mars. On July 25, 1976, NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft was searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander.

Face of mars