Mars, Earth’s closest neighbor, has long captivated human imagination with the possibility of extraterrestrial life just a short rocket journey away. Such life, however, has never been discovered. However, since NASA and other space agencies started employing robotic technology to examine the Red Planet’s surface and skies, pictures of odd formations and features have continued to excite scientists’ and space enthusiasts’ curiosity and inspire fear and optimism. One such example was a mile-wide hill or mesa in the Cydonia region that looked like a face when illuminated from a certain angle. The image sparked decades of speculation about an ancient Martian civilization and its monuments. However, follow-up images from later missions to better tech proved that the resemblance was just an optical illusion caused by how the light hits the rocks and shadows at different angles.
But while the so-called “Face on Mars” was not evidence of aliens, its resemblance to a human head is a classic case of pareidolia—our tendency to see familiar patterns in random shapes. The Perseverance rover, currently on a mission to explore Jezero Crater, recently sent back a photo of a rock that looks, for all the world, like a desiccated, skull-like head with eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
The resemblance to a human skull is probably due to a series of holes made by the rover to conduct a chemical analysis of the rock. However, the eyes, nose, and mouth look a lot more like the heads of zebras, which are also striped with dark and light areas. Scientists are still determining how the unusual zebra rock formed, but they think it may be volcanic and rolled down from the crater’s rim to its current location.
While the Perseverance rover’s discovery is not the latest evidence of life on Mars, it does offer valuable insights. It underscores the importance of self-correcting science and reminds us that, while we may be more likely to find familiar faces in inanimate objects, Mars has plenty of natural enigmas waiting to be uncovered.
The next time you look at a picture of Mars, try not to be fooled by the “face” and instead focus on all the other intriguing rock formations that are sure to be found in this fascinating, mysterious planet. Then, let your imagination run wild — but don’t get too carried away and start thinking about a colony of aliens trying to harvest our brains. That’s just plain uncalled for.
