,A Martian surface feature, as seen on the Google Mars database, that one man says looks like the profile of Mahatma Gandhi. CREDIT: Matteo Ianneo/ESA/Google Maps/Before It's News View full size image
Posted on 06/15/2011 2:26:18 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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A Martian surface feature, as seen on the Google Mars database, that one man says looks like the profile of Mahatma Gandhi. CREDIT: Matteo Ianneo/ESA/Google Maps/Before It's News View full size image
Now that Google Mars, a new online map pieced together from satellite images of the Red Planet, is up and running, space enthusiasts the world over are finding interesting objects on the Martian surface.
The latest is a face found by an Italian named Matteo Ianneo, who has also claimed to have found vegetation, entrances to underground tunnels and city ruins on Mars in the past few weeks. Ianneo says his latest surface find, which is located at 33°12'29.82"N and 12°55'51.21"W, looks like a picture of Mahatma Gandhi in profile.
It is reminiscent of the Face on Mars, a hill photographed by NASA's Viking 1 probe in 1976 that, in one low-resolution image, resembled a face. Within days of its discovery, space hobbyists were speculating that the structure was man-made and had been built by ancient Martians. A higher-resolution image taken of the "face" last year by NASA's HiRISE camera revealed a rugged hill. [Photos: The 'Face on Mars' and Other Martian Illusions]
A similar low-res deception is at work this time around.
To help sort out just what Ianneo is looking at, Jonathan Hill, a researcher at the Arizona State University Mars Space Flight Facility, which owns and operates a database of Mars images somewhat similar to Google's, tracked down the photo Google used of the Gandhi face, as seen below. It is a low-resolution image taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter.
Photo taken of the Gandhi face geologic feature by the Mars Express Orbiter. CREDIT: ASU Mars Space Flight Facility View full size image
A higher-resolution image of the same geologic feature taken by a better camera, the CTX camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, erases the illusion.
"As you can see, we're actually looking at some sort of collapse pit, not a mound like it appears in the Google Mars image," Hill told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site of SPACE.com.
Photo taken of the Gandhi face geologic feature by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. CREDIT: ASU Mars Space Flight Facility View full size image
Seeing things
"Pareidolia" is the scientific term for seeing faces (or other significant objects) where they aren't. Face pareidolia happens, scientists say, as a byproduct of our heightened sensitivity to the details of human faces. [Seeing Things On Mars: A History of Martian Illusions]
Takeo Watanabe of the Boston University Visual Sciences Laboratory put it this way: "We've over-learned human faces so we see them where they aren't."
Last week, a self-described "armchair astronaut" discovered another anomaly while perusing the Google Mars map. In a viral Youtube video, David Martines claimed to have identified a human (or alien) base on the planet, which he dubbed Bio Station Alpha. The somewhat mysterious linear streak that he thought was a building on the Martian surface was later revealed to be a cosmic ray artifact — a distortion arising in the camera that snapped the photo of the surface when an energetic particle zipped through it.
People have been finding suggestive objects on the surface of Mars for centuries. By making our neighboring planet visible to everyone, Google Mars will likely increase the frequency of such finds.
Good word. My dog claims Mars is littered with alien monuments to Goofy and Rin Tin Tin. Can't see any of the human faces.
Looks more like Curly (of the Three Stooges) than Gandhi.
I see a face, but with that huge ear it looks more like Obama than Gandhi. IMHO.
That other thing looks like a Congressman.
Wonder if that Cydonia guy knows about this.
Gee, I thought it looked like LBJ.
“I see a face, but with that huge ear it looks more like Obama than Gandhi.”
Agree. I think it looks like Eric Holder with Obamao ears.
Looks like Bob Hoskins to me.
I see a tortilla. ; )
I’m thinking Vladimir Lenin without the goatee
and beheaded! Allu Akhbar!
Wow, so now I have a name for myself, I am pareidolid. Since early childhood, I’ve loved to look at shapes and see if I see something that looks like something else. Sort of like trying to make images out of the clouds going overhead. I always thought of it as just a game, but now I’ve learned there is a scientific term for my game. Wow. Which brings me back to Ghandi. I don’t see what this person supposedly sees. Though my first impression is if you look at the round object in the lower left, to me it looks like Vladimir Lenin. He’s facing sideways looking toward the left. And behind him appears to be a hindu god or goddess, the one with the pointed golden hat. This image is also turned sideways looking left, yet behind and a bit above the Lenin image. Kind of an odd image, but then again it is just a trick of the eye and mind. And if I concentrated I could probably see something else and or even just a bunch of Mars dirt and dust. lol
That’s not Gandhi. That’s an elderly, fat, Obama with goiter.
“My dog claims Mars is littered with alien monuments to Goofy and Rin Tin Tin.”
If my children were still little, they would politely disagree with your dog. As it would make more sense to find alien monuments to Goofy and Rin Tin Tin on Pluto. Or as my kids used to call it the dog planet, where all dog life in the universe originated. lol
Hmph. I didn’t realize Gandhi did impressions.
My country to the bone girlfriend is one of those common sense, hard work, school of hard knocks type people.
A while back we were watching the old Gandhi movie and she asked, “Who is Gandhi”?
She is priceless and why she puts up with me is a mystery.
Looks like a generic lib with his head exploding after Sarah Palin wins the election in 2012.
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