NASA publishes an intriguing photo of the Red Planet

Baloo, Winnie and the Care Bears now have company in the sky famous bears: a strange geological formation resembling a bear cub’s head has been spotted on a roof Mars from here NASA.

Interestingly, the image was taken last month by the US Space Agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite, which is orbiting the Red Planet with a high-resolution HiRISE camera installed on board, which is the most powerful camera ever sent by humans into the solar system.

“A bear on Mars?asks the HiRISE Project Twitter account that posted the snapshot on Wednesday.

According to scientists at the University of Arizona, who are leading the project, the animal’s face is actually made up of “two pits“that make up the eyes and”HillLoose, gag-like. These items are surrounded byCircular fracture“, which defines the contours of the head and can be formed by deposits of lava or mud. The whole thing gives the impression of seeing the smiling face of a bear. It is quite coincidental, that we give a geological formation that extends over a distance of two kilometers.

The HiRISE camera is one of six instruments aboard NASA’s satellite, which has been orbiting Mars since 2006. Ultra-high-resolution, it allows for extremely detailed images to be taken to map the surface of the Red Planet for future missions carried out by robots or humans. For ten years, the scientists who run it have managed, for example, to photograph avalanches on Mars, and have discovered dark traces that could be salt water flowing along the gullies.

They also spotted dust devils on the planet’s surface, and another geological formation that looks suspiciously like the insignia of the Starfleet force tasked with space exploration in the Star Trek TV series. But even with high-definition images, the little green men supposed to populate Mars in the popular imagination have so far proven untraceable.