MOLA can measure the heights of things with a vertical precision of 20 to 30 cm (its horizontal resolution is 150m). Garvin and other members of the MGS Science Team have studied them carefully, however, using a laser altimeter called "MOLA" on board Mars Global Surveyor. "That's a lava dome that takes the form of an isolated mesa about the same height as the Face on Mars."Ĭydonia is littered with mesas like the Face, but the others don't look like human heads and they've attracted little popular attention. "It reminds me most of Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho," says Garvin. What the picture actually shows is the Martian equivalent of a butte or mesa - landforms common around the American West. Right: "Gee, it doesn't look like a face to me!" by artist Duane Hilton. "So, if there were objects in this picture like airplanes on the ground or Egyptian-style pyramids or even small shacks, you could see what they were!" "As a rule of thumb, you can discern things in a digital image 3 times bigger than the pixel size," he added. "Malin's team captured an extraordinary photo using the camera's absolute maximum resolution." Each pixel in the 2001 image spans 1.56 meters, compared to 43 meters per pixel in the best 1976 Viking photo. "We had to roll the spacecraft 25 degrees to center the Face in the field of view," said Garvin. Nevertheless, on Ap- a cloudless summer day in Cydonia - Mars Global Surveyor drew close enough for a second look. "We just don't pass over the Face very often," he noted. "In fact, it's hard work." Mars Global Surveyor is a mapping spacecraft that normally looks straight down and scans the planet like a fax machine in narrow 2.5 km-wide strips. "It's not easy to target Cydonia," says Garvin. Mission controllers prepared to look again. Perhaps, said skeptics, alien markings were hidden by haze. The camera on board MGS had to peer through wispy clouds to see the Face. The Face on Mars is located at 41 degrees north martian latitude where it was winter in April '98 - a cloudy time of year on the Red Planet. View the 2001 photo in dazzling high-resolution!īut not everyone was satisfied. There was no alien monument after all.Ībove: Side by side: a Viking 1 photo from 1976, a Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) image from 1998, and the latest MGS image from 2001. Thousands of anxious web surfers were waiting when the image first appeared on a JPL web site, revealing. "We photographed the Face as soon as we could get a good shot at it."Īnd so on April 5, 1998, when Mars Global Surveyor flew over Cydonia for the first time, Michael Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) team snapped a picture ten times sharper than the original Viking photos. "We felt this was important to taxpayers," explained Jim Garvin, chief scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. 1997, eighteen long years after the Viking missions ended. Meanwhile, defenders of the NASA budget wish there was an ancient civilization on Mars.Īlthough few scientists believed the Face was an alien artifact, photographing Cydonia became a priority for NASA when Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) arrived at the Red Planet in Sept. It has starred in a Hollywood film, appeared in books, magazines, radio talk shows - even haunted grocery store checkout lines for 25 years! Some people think the Face is bona fide evidence of life on Mars - evidence that NASA would rather hide, say conspiracy theorists. The "Face on Mars" has since become a pop icon. Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth." The authors reasoned it would be a good way to engage the public and attract attention to Mars. The caption noted a "huge rock formation. Click here for a 2001 photo from Mars Global Surveyor that reveals the true appearance of the Face.Ī few days later NASA unveiled the image for all to see. Scientists figured it was just another Martian mesa, common enough around Cydonia, only this one had unusual shadows that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh.Ībove: A 1976 Viking 1 photograph of the Face on Mars. There must have been a degree of surprise among mission controllers back at the Jet Propulsion Lab when the face appeared on their monitors. An enormous head nearly two miles from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia. NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, snapping photos of possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2, when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. Twenty five years ago something funny happened around Mars.
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