Yogi, Paddington and Winnie the Pooh are the ruling bears on Earth, but they have competition on Mars.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s camera has seen the smiling face of a teddy bear carved into the planet’s surface.
Scientists in charge of HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) published a photo of the face of Ursa after processing images from a powerful camera orbiting Mars since 2006.
“Bear on Mars?”asked the Twitter account of the test, followed by an explanation.
“There is a V (nose)-shaped collapsed hump, two grooves (eyes) and a round-shaped (head) fracture,” university scientists noted. Arizona, in charge of organization.
Each feature on the 2,000-meter-wide surface has a description that provides clues about how active the surface of our nearest planet is.
“The circular fracture pattern may be due to sediment settlement over the buried impact crater,” the scientists said.
“Perhaps the nose is a volcano or mud vent and the sediment is lava or mudflow?”
One of the instruments on the orbiter, HiRISE, will take extremely detailed photos of the Red Planet and help map the surface for possible future missions by humans or robots.
Over the past decade, the team has taken images of avalanches at full range and detected dark flows that could be some kind of liquid.
They found vortices advancing on the Martian surface and a mark that to many looked like the Martian Starfleet logo. “Journey to the Stars”.
What they haven’t discovered yet is the population of tiny green men believed to inhabit the planet.
