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I love pareidolia! That’s the term for seeing patterns in random data. I talk about it quite a bit on my page describing a visitor in my bathroom shower, if you want more info about it.
Poking away at images of other planets will give you plenty of opportunities for pareidolia. After all, we have the Man in the Moon, the face on Mars (well, no we don’t), and on and on. Of course, there are even more whimsical examples as well.
What the picture above shows is the Happy Face crater on Mars. This feature was actually discovered a long time ago during the Viking missions in the 1970s. But the European Mars Express orbiter took some new shots of it, and they were just released. It’s not the best happy face I’ve ever seen (I’ve seen better ones in my own Hubble data (scroll to the bottom)), but hey, it’s not too bad.
Another orbiter, the Mars Global Surveyor, took an image of the crater a few years back. The crater, actually named Galle, was further around the limb of Mars, and so looks foreshortened, elliptical. Here is a side-by-side of the two:
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Pretty cool. There are several articles about the new images on the web; the Space News Blog has a good one.
What else can I say, except…
Have a nice day.’
April 11th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
There’s more happy faces on Mars than here in England…..
April 12th, 2006 at 12:34 am
lol (:
you have a nice day too
April 12th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Ah, but in England, don’t you still have crop circles? (-:
For some reason, the elliptical one looks more like a face to me. I think it’s because the “eyes” look closer to equal, and the dark “makeup” streak is missing.
April 12th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Heh…for any Alan Moore fans, this is the crater which Dr Manhattan’s glass castle falls into during WATCHMEN.
April 12th, 2006 at 4:30 am
I’ve learned a new vocabulary word today for a phenomenon I’ve always marveled at… finally, an explanation for those people who see the face of Jesus in their morning toast…
April 12th, 2006 at 5:42 am
Does anyone else think the crater looks like Joseph Merrick, ie. the Elephant Man?
April 12th, 2006 at 5:53 am
Spaceweather currently features a new variety I’d never encountered: prominence pareidolia. Brontosaurus and gazelle-shaped solar prominences? Mmkay…
April 12th, 2006 at 6:05 am
The color one looks more like a deer footprint to me. Imagine the size of the deer that would have left that track.
GH
April 12th, 2006 at 6:24 am
Is it just me, or can you see the Millenium Falcon in there?
April 12th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Along the right side of the crater, is dark colored soil. Which could be taken as hair if you look at it right. Then there is a heavy brow and a mustache. So, by looking at that part of the picture rather than the smiley face, you can see the face of what looks like a Cro Magnon… (If you squint your eyes and tilt your head just so…)
April 12th, 2006 at 6:41 am
It’s not just you, Rockingham. I immediately saw the Millenium Falcon in there before seeing anything else! I guess I’m just dorky enough for that to happen (no offense
).
April 12th, 2006 at 8:22 am
A few years back on the graphic novel Watchmen, Alan Moore had the ending of chapter IX happen on this very spot, yet as it looks rather different from the actual site I think Mr Moore didn’t have visual reference of it. Interestingly enough Galle crater looks closer to the blood stained smiley face that is a constant theme throughout the novel.
Check the sequence at http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/wm/AN/marspnls.htm
April 12th, 2006 at 8:43 am
I’d forgotten about that sequence in The Watchmen. I havn’t read it a couple years. Good to know that smiley face is based on an actual crater. But the actual crater is far more interesting.
April 12th, 2006 at 8:47 am
I, for one, welcome our Smiley Face overlords.
April 12th, 2006 at 8:48 am
It looks kinda like a peach in the new photo to me. I had a very hard time picking out the smiley face.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Anyone remember FaceBall 2000? That was a fun little pointless game.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:19 am
I immediately saw pacman.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:39 am
I didn’t see the Millennium Falcon, but I was thinking more “Death Star” until I read that it was supposed to be a happy face (which, yeah, it does, kinda).
April 12th, 2006 at 10:06 am
I still say it’s not Lenin in your bathroom shower, but the ghost of Col. Sanders:
http://www.bautforum.com/showpost.php?p=288208&postcount=14
April 12th, 2006 at 10:11 am
I never thought I’d say a crater is adorable.
April 12th, 2006 at 10:43 am
We’ve seen a few examples of the smiley face. Are there examples of a frowning face crater? (etc.) Or is pareidolia mainly a positive experience?
:p
April 12th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Count me as another who saw the Falcon in there before anything else.
April 12th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Clear proof that Walmart has expanded beyond the confines of Terra
Wayne
April 12th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Interesting.
I never would have noticed the face, had you not mentioned it. I thought it was just a pretty pic of the Martian surface.
Oh wait, it is!
April 12th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Octavio, thanks for that link. I had completely forgotten about the Watchmen thing. Too cool.
April 12th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Crop circles? Here? No! What you saw was; swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
April 12th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Thanks for the link, Phil. I added the psychedelic-colored crater to my Photo Center with the other silly photos of Mars pareidolia vs. reality. Since my Photo Center belongs to not just me, I like to poke at some of the members. They’re used to it.
@Blake: Crop circles are art, and belong in museums along with Robert Smithson rock-manipulations. (However, in 1982 at the Venice Biennale, Smithson did a horrible one; there was a bad Brancusi, too, which was a major disappointment to my mother and me.)
If one wants to understand rock formations, they ought to look at real mounds of rock on the way to Las Vegas. Gamble on reality, and you’ll always win.
I notice, too, that that the dude from the tarot-card/psychic-scata site never told me what the weather would be like last Saturday…hmm, perhaps he didn’t appreciate my sarcasm. Gee, darn, I’ll just have to go back to reading Spaceweather.com or paying attention to Europans…and astronomers.
PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Astronomers.
PETA: People Eating Tasty Astronomers (but not Phil, because his mom and wife look in here, sorry Phil, but you sound great on radio).
And that goes for the Amateur Astronomers who find asteroids, and create pretty pictures that force us to stick our noses in books.
So, what were you all talking about, anyway?
April 13th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Thats wierd because I was trying for the virgin mary in my toast and I got that same smiley face. deja vu!!
April 18th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I see a bovine hoofprint with a smile.