Facial pareidolia is the human tendency or illusion of seeing facial structures in an everyday objects – such as seeing the “man in the Moon,” or the face of Jesus on a piece of toast.
But here’s a newly found crater on Mars that might be a case of ‘bear-adoilia.’
There’s no denying, the crater looks like a bear’s face. We’ve seen some crazy craters on Mars over the years from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) – like the famous smiley face, or an elephant and a bird.
But what could possibly create the weird feature in the middle of the crater that is shaped like a bear’s snout?
“There’s a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head),” said HiRISE principal investigator Alfred McEwen. “The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows? Maybe just grin and bear it.”