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In July, 1976, Viking Orbiter 1 was acquiring images of the Cydonia region of Mars and photographing a region of buttes and mesas. Among the hills was one that, to the Viking investigators scrutinizing the images for likely landing sites, resembled a face. Owing to the importance of the landing site search, and with a desire to provide the public with at least one familiar-looking landform amid the craters and exotic terrains found all over Mars, an image including the face-like hill was released as part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's public relations effort. The text of that release notes the face-like hill. The image above, on top, was taken recently. The second image is from that initial batch of photos NASA/JPL released thirty years ago...
Of course, following the release of that picture and story, many in the UFO community have argued that the face-like hill is artificially shaped.
[1] For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.
In July, 1976, Viking Orbiter 1 was acquiring images of the Cydonia region of Mars and photographing a region of buttes and mesas. Among the hills was one that, to the Viking investigators scrutinizing the images for likely landing sites, resembled a face. Owing to the importance of the landing site search, and with a desire to provide the public with at least one familiar-looking landform amid the craters and exotic terrains found all over Mars, an image including the face-like hill was released as part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's public relations effort. The text of that release notes the face-like hill. The image above, on top, was taken recently. The second image is from that initial batch of photos NASA/JPL released thirty years ago...
Of course, following the release of that picture and story, many in the UFO community have argued that the face-like hill is artificially shaped.
The image on top--Image PSP_003234_2210 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on 05-Apr-2007 [1]. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 03:28 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 73 degrees, thus the sun was about 17 degrees above the horizon. The season on Mars is Northern Autumn.
[1] For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.
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