NASA orbiter captures image of a bear's face on Mars - CNN

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory subject newsletter. Explore the beingness with quality connected fascinating discoveries, technological advancements and more.

CNN  — 

As a NASA orbiter turned its camera to the Martian surface, the look of a carnivore seemed to beryllium looking back.

A camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, oregon HiRISE, captured an representation of the antithetic geological diagnostic successful December.

A circular fracture signifier connected the Martian aboveground shapes the head, portion 2 craters lucifer eyes. A V-shaped collapse structure creates the illusion of the chemoreceptor of a bear.

The circular fracture mightiness beryllium owed to the settling of a deposit connected apical of a buried interaction crater that had been filled successful with lava oregon mud. The noselike diagnostic is perchance a volcanic vent oregon a mud vent.

The University of Arizona, which developed the camera with Ball Aerospace, shared the image connected January 25.

The photograph is reminiscent of different celestial “face” glimpsed by a NASA abstraction observatory successful October 2022, erstwhile the prima appeared to smile owed to acheronian spots called coronal holes.

And past March, the Curiosity rover spotted a stone enactment that resembled a flower connected Mars.

The HiRISE camera has been taking images of Mars since 2006, erstwhile the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began circling the reddish planet. The almighty camera was designed to seizure elaborate images of the Martian surface, including features arsenic tiny arsenic 3 feet (1 meter).

The orbiter circles Mars each 112 minutes, flying from astir 160 miles (255 kilometers) supra the southbound rod to 200 miles (320 kilometers) implicit the northbound pole.

The spacecraft and its suite of instruments assistance NASA scientists survey the Martian atmosphere, upwind and climate, and however they alteration implicit time. The orbiter searches for grounds of water, crystal and analyzable terrain and scouts aboriginal landing sites for different missions.

Most recently, the orbiter returned stunning images of what wintertime looks similar connected Mars.