In this dynamic aimed at breaking the scientific monotony and bringing space exploration closer to users, NASA has shared on its social networks a funny shot captured by the HiRISE cameraaboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, on December 12: a geographic formation reminiscent of a typical bear face drawn by a child.
As the space agency explains in a statement, it is actually a hill with a collapse structure V-shaped (which gives shape to the nose), two craters (the eyes) and a circular fracture pattern (the head). One way, the latter, which could be due to the settlement of a deposit on a buried impact crater. “Perhaps the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?” the team wonders.
The image, in fact, is reminiscent of another very similar one taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and published at the end of October. On that occasion, it was the Sun that He gave his best smile with two eyes and a mouth formed by coronal holes, regions where the solar wind shoots rapidly into space, which gave that impression of happiness when seen with the ultraviolet light of the device.