The face of a bear on Mars? Look at the unusual discovery made by NASA

() — As a NASA orbiter turned its camera toward the surface of Mars, a bear’s face appeared to be watching.

A camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, captured an image of an unusual geological feature in December.

A bear’s face appears to take shape on the Martian surface in this new image taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Two craters create the eyes, a circular fracture shapes the face, and a collapsed V-shaped structure represents the nose. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona)

A circular fracture pattern on the Martian surface shapes the head, while two craters resemble eyes. A collapsed V-shaped structure creates the illusion of a bear’s nose.

The circular fracture could be due to the settlement of a deposit on top of a buried impact crater that had been filled with lava or mud. The nose-shaped feature is possibly a volcanic vent or mud vent.

The University of Arizona, which developed the camera with Ball Aerospace, shared the image on January 25.

The photo is reminiscent of another celestial “face” glimpsed by a NASA space observatory in October 2022when the Sun seemed to smile due to dark spots called coronal holes.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun “smiling.” Viewed in ultraviolet light, these dark patches are known as coronal holes and are regions where the fast-moving solar wind streams out into space.
NASA/GSFC/SDO

And last March, the Curiosity rover detected a rock formation that looked like a flower In mars.

The Curiosity rover discovered this rock, smaller than a penny, resembling a flower or a piece of coral inside Gale Crater on February 24. The small pieces in this photo were created billions of years ago when minerals carried by water cemented the rock. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

The HiRISE camera has been taking images of Mars since 2006, when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began circling the red planet. The powerful camera was designed to capture detailed images of the Martian surface, including some as small as 1 meter (3 feet).

The orbiter circles Mars every 112 minutes, flying from about 255 kilometers (about 160 miles) above the South Pole to 320 kilometers (200 miles) above the North Pole.

The spacecraft and its suite of instruments help NASA scientists study the Martian atmosphere, weather and climate, and how they change over time. The orbiter looks for evidence of water, ice and complex terrain and explores future landing sites for other missions.

Most recently, the orbiter returned stunning images of what winter is like on Mars.