Female Figure on Mars Just a Rock !!!

NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Sprit spent the closing months of 2007. Several bloggers and other enthusiasts have pointed to a tiny structure (red circle) on the Martian surface as a human figure and thus evidence of life on Mars.



In the bottom right hand corner of this NASA image, you can make out what is shaped like a lizard wearing goggles. NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Sprit spent the closing months of 2007.


The idea that there may be life on Mars has been around for centuries, but the theory got a dubious boost from recently released photos of the surface of Mars (taken by the NASA robot Spirit) apparently showing a human-like figure. Several Internet sites have glommed onto the image and suggested the figure could be alive.

But what is it? Just a rock, astronomers say.

It's hard enough to accurately recognize figures and faces across the room. Mars, depending on when you measure it, is about 35 million miles away. The best telescopes aren't of much help in determining surface features, and that's why NASA sent robots with cameras to Mars.

The reason many people see a figure on the Martian landscape is the same reason that people see faces in clouds, Rorschach blots, and coffee stains. This phenomenon, called pareidolia, is well known in psychology, and it is the cause of many supposedly mysterious and miraculous events (including the famous "Jesus in the Tortilla"). Examples are all around us; in fact if you have a New Hampshire state quarter, you have pareidolia in your pocket or purse (take a look).

Strong evidence for this psychological explanation lies in the fact that the Spirit image does not look like Martian life (since we don't know what life on Mars looks like), but instead resembles life here on Earth, specifically human life. The image is the result of human interpretation. If you look around the full image of the area (not just the close-up), you will find several rocks and features that resemble non-human Earth life, such as armadillos and snakes. In the right bottom corner, emerging from the sand, there is what looks like a lizard face wearing goggles and an airman's helmet.

This is of course not the first time that NASA images have been claimed to show evidence of Martian life. A man named Richard Hoagland claimed that 1976 photographs of the Cydonia region of Mars showed a human-like face and was clear evidence of aliens.

According to astronomer Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy Web site, if the image really is of a man on Mars, he's awfully small: "Talk about a tempest in a teacup!" Plait said. "The rock on Mars is actually just a few inches high and a few yards from the camera. A few million years of Martian winds sculpted it into an odd shape, which happens to look like, well, a Bigfoot! It's just our natural tendency to see familiar shapes in random objects."

Even though logic and science suggest that the image is of a rock and not an animal, UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists will continue to speculate.

In fact, it will actually be pretty easy to determine whether or not the image is of alien life. In later photographs of the area, either the same shape will be there or it won't. If it is, it's a rock (unless, of course, little Martian men can hold the same pose for weeks or months at a time).

This is exactly how the "Face on Mars" was eventually disproven. On April 5, 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor took photographs of the same region in far higher resolution than was possible in 1976. The new images clearly showed an area heavily eroded, and that the "face" was simply the result of low image quality, pareidolia, and tricks of light and shadow. Hoagland's theory was discredited.

Just don't tell that to the creepy, goggle-wearing Martian sand lizard.

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He is author or co-author of three books on skepticism and science literacy. They can be found on his website.

A Whole New View: Hubble Overhaul to Boost Telescope's Reach

When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe.

Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth — and final — sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope.

"We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the new instruments to be installed."



NASA's Hubble Space Telescope maintains its orbit around Earth. The space agency hopes to upgrade the aging observatory some time in August 2008.

Astronauts Steven Smith, and John Grunsfeld, appear as small figures in this wide scene photographed during an STS-103 extravehicular activity (EVA) to service the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999.

The Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera-3 undergoes integration and testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is subjected to integration and testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.




A deeper look

In addition to performing vital repairs, astronauts will add two new instruments to Hubble's observation platform — Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph — that will drastically boost its vision range.

"This refurbished Hubble [will be] a new telescope," said astronomer Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We estimate that at the end of this repair Hubble will be 90 times more powerful than when it was first launched."

That means that Hubble will be able to see at least 90 times more objects in deep space than it could when it was deployed in April 1990, she added.

With its ability to scan the universe at wavelengths ranging from the near-infrared, visible spectrum to the near-ultraviolet, the new Wide Field Camera-3 should allow Hubble to see objects that formed fewer than 800 million years after the beginning of the universe.

"To follow galaxy formation to times that are even earlier than this, we need a camera that can take sharp pictures efficiently at longer wavelengths," Faber said. "And that's exactly what Wide Field Camera-3 is going to do."

The new camera has better resolution than its Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 predecessor and a wider field of view than Hubble's current NICMOS spectrometer, and could reveal objects that formed when the universe was just 400 or 500 million years old, she added.

"A difference like this makes a huge difference in the structure and formation of the galaxies that we'll see," Faber said. Astronomers currently estimate that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old.

Hubble's new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, meanwhile, will scan the universe in the ultraviolet range with about 10 times more sensitivity than the observatory's current tools.

"I believe it's the most sensitive UV spectroscopic capability ever to fly in space for astronomical purposes," said Hubble senior project scientist David Leckrone of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "It's designed, because it's so sensitive, to go as deep as possible out across the universe as fast as possible."

Researchers hope the new spectrograph will map the so-called cosmic web, the universe's large-scale structure made up of strands of galaxies that branch out in three dimensions like an astronomical spider's web.

"It is amazing to me how we've been able to reinvent the Hubble Space Telescope with each of these missions," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, who will serve as the lead spacewalker for the telescope's last overhaul.

Full power ahead

Hubble service astronauts will also replace failed gyroscopes, fine guidance sensor and aged batteries, and make unprecedented repairs to the space telescope's main camera and a vital spectrograph.

"When the astronauts leave Hubble for the last time, it will be at the apex of its capabilities," said Leckrone. "It will be the first time since 1993 that there will be five working instruments aboard."

Spacewalkers will replace Hubble's cracked thermal insulation and replace each of its 16-year-old batteries among other hardware.

They will also repair the observatory's Space Telescope Imaging Spectroscope and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both of which were never designed to be fixed in orbit. Spacewalkers will remove more than 111 tiny screws to repair the two units.

"The good news is we're going to try and repair ACS. The bad news is we've never done it before," said Grunsfeld. "It's very tricky."

Grunsfeld and his six crewmates plan to stage five spacewalks to service Hubble during their STS-125 mission. NASA initially canceled the spaceflight following the 2003 Columbia tragedy, but later reinstated the mission after a detailed risk analysis.

The result, researchers said, is about five extra years of science for Hubble before its controlled deorbit sometime after 2020. To prepare for the space telescope's eventual demise, spacewalkers will also attach a connecting port that will allow a robotic tug to dock with Hubble.

"None of us could have imagined what this fourth-generation suite of instruments can do," said Stern, adding the 90-fold jump in observation power for Hubble will be unprecedented. "We will have the capability, literally, of approximately 100 Hubbles [circa] 1990 when this mission is done."

2008 Preview Night Sky Highlights

Here are some of the more noteworthy sky events that will take place this year. SPACE.com's weekly Night Sky column will provide more extensive coverage of each event as they draw closer.

February 1 — Venus/Jupiter conjunction, Part 1. This will be the first of two meetings this year between the two brightest planets in our sky. This one will occur in the morning sky, low in the east-southeast and is best seen about 45 minutes before sunup. On Feb. 4, a beautiful crescent moon will join the two planets making for an eye-catching array.

February 20-21 — Total eclipse of the moon. Less than six months after last August's total lunar eclipse, we have yet another that occurs during the late-night hours of February 20-21. This eclipse will favor much of North America, occurring during convenient evening hours, although Europeans will also be able to enjoy a view of the darkened moon before it sets. Totality will last for a bit less time than usual (50 minutes), as the moon slides to just within the southern portion of the Earth's umbra, perhaps leading to a potentially bright total phase highlighted by a brighter southern limb. Adding to this spectacle, a planet (Saturn) and a bright star (Regulus) will be close to the totally eclipsed moon forming a broad triangle.

May 10 — Occultation of the Beehive star cluster. A waxing crescent moon, 38 percent illuminated, will pass in front of the famous Beehive Cluster this evening for North Americans, making for a pretty sight in binoculars and low-power telescopes. Members of the cluster will disappear behind the moon's dark edge and will reappear about an hour later behind the bright edge.

May 21-22 — Jupiter without satellites! Anyone who points a small telescope toward the planet Jupiter will nearly always see some or all of the four famous Galilean satellites. Usually at least two or three of these moons are immediately evident; sometimes all four. It is very rare when only one moon is in view and rarer still when no moons at all are visible. On this night, for parts of the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada, Jupiter will appear moonless for about 20 minutes.

June 30 — Occultation of the Pleiades star cluster. This occultation is already in progress for the northeastern U.S. as a skinny sliver of a waning crescent moon rises in the pre-dawn sky. Earthshine should also be present, imparting a "3-D effect" in binoculars and small telescopes. The best views will come as the brighter stars of this cluster reappear along the dark lunar limb.

August 1 — Total eclipse of the sun. Siberia anyone? From Novosibirsk you'll see the late-afternoon sun completely blotted out for 2.3 minutes. Totality will also be visible from Canada's Northwest Passage, western Mongolia, and the western end of the Great Wall of China.


August 11-12 — Perseid meteor shower. At first glance this doesn't look like a favorable year to view this famous meteor display, since the moon will be in a bright waxing gibbous phase on the peak viewing night. Fortunately, the moon will set at around 1:45 a.m. local daylight time, leaving the rest of the night dark for meteor watchers.

August 16 — Partial eclipse of the moon. Europe, Africa and Asia will be in the best position to watch about four-fifths of moon become immersed in the Earth's dark umbral shadow.

September 19 — Another Pleiades occultation. A waning gibbous moon will already be within the Pleiades as it rises over the Eastern U.S. and Canada during the mid-evening hours. The reappearance of stars such as Alcyone and Taygeta should be well-seen along the moon's dark limb.

December 1 — Venus/Jupiter conjunction, Part 2. This will be the second pairing-off of the two brightest planets in 2008, this time in the evening sky soon after sundown. And as a bonus, the crescent moon will join them forming a striking triangle and likely making even those who normally don't look up at the sky take notice.