The Martian Face
The year was 1976. A date very few of those involved in space could forget. NASA’s Viking I spacecraft was taking pictures of the surface of Mars with a goal to find possible landing sites for its’ sister ship, Viking 2. It located a shadowy likeness of an enormous human face, located in a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia, as the camera captured the views at nearly two miles wide.
The mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Lab were surprised initially, but soon realized it was just another Mars mesa. The only difference was that this one looked like an Egyptian Pharaoh. To bring attention to Mars, NASA released the image for the world to see. It was noted as a “huge rock formation, resembling a human head, and formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose, and mouth”. The “Face on Mars” soon became a pop icon. Some people actually thought the face to be evidence of life on Mars. Even NASA thought twice about the face and in 1997 photographing Cydonia was a priority when Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) landed on the Red Planet, eighteen years after the Viking missions end.
“We felt this was important to taxpayers,” explained Jim Garvin, Chief scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. “We photographed the face as soon as we could get a good shot at it.” When Mars Global Surveyor flew over Cydonia in 1998 a picture, ten times sharper than the original picture was snapped. It showed the world a natural landform. However not everybody was satisfied. The face is located 41 degrees north Martian latitude where it was winter and a cloudy time of year on Mars. To see the Face, the camera had to look through wispy clouds. According to some, may be alien markings were hidden by haze. Mars Global Surveyor is a mapping spacecraft that normally looks straight down and scans the planet like a fax machine. In 2001, on a cloudless summer day in Cydonia the camera got a second shot.
What was seen was the Martian equivalent of a butte or mesa like those found in the American west. Cydonia is littered with mesas similar to the Face. Planetary geologists are very interested in the mesas of Cydonia because they are located in a curious part of Mars. Some scientists believe that the northern plains are all that remains of an ancient Martian ocean and that Cydonia might have once been beachfront property. To solve the mystery, a geologist could be sent to investigate. Garvin, an enthusiastic climber would like to go. The latest MGS images of the face are so detailed that he already knows what route he would take. In fact, he’s even prepared a trail map. Figuring that it would take two hours to reach the summit he thinks the view would be spectacular. “Mars is a special place, it reminds us if home — one day we are going to go there,” says Garvin.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Mission History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
