You’ve heard of the “mand in the Moon,” but what about the “bear on Mars”?
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00:00You've probably heard the phrase the man in the moon, or the face that many people
00:07say they see when they look up at the giant grey rock in the sky.
00:11In fact, there was even a more convincing one on Mars, discovered decades ago in the
00:15Cydonia region.
00:16That's because human beings are susceptible to an illusion called facial pareidolia, or
00:19when we tend to see faces, when there are two dots in a line that are oriented like
00:23a face.
00:24But now scientists are likely looking for a new science-y sounding word for what I guarantee
00:27you see in this recently discovered crater cluster on Mars.
00:31This is clearly the face of a bear that researchers don't yet have a name for.
00:34High resolution imaging experts say the two eyes are craters, and that they believe the
00:38snout of the bear is a hill with a V-shaped collapse at the top.
00:41So what about the near perfect circle which sort of ties the whole bear face together?
00:44Well, they're not really sure, but this is what High Rise lead investigator Alfred McEwan
00:48had to say about it.
00:49The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried
00:53impact crater.
00:54Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent, and the deposit could be lava or mud flows.
00:59Maybe just grin and bear it.