Bear on Mars? NASA satellite snaps a strange formation

It looks like a giant teddy bear’s face peering into space from the surface of Mars, but experts say it’s actually a satellite image that features some craters and a circular fracture.

The photo was taken Dec. 12, by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRise) camera which is attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA released the image to the public on Jan. 25.

While scientists are not certain what the Martian formation is made of, the University of Arizona team that operates the camera said in a blog post the apparent formation has a v-shaped collapse structure, two craters, and a circular fracture pattern.

While the University of Arizona team likened the image to a bear’s face, others point out online that it resembles an Angry Bird or the meme, Doge, among other things.

"The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater," a blog post on the University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Laboratory website reads. "Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?"

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched in 2005, on a mission to advance NASA's understanding of Mars through photo images. The HiRise camera takes stereo images that are helpful in measuring the topography of planets, to help determine areas where spacecraft could land one day.

The photo has made for some bear-y good jokes online:

 

A bear-y nice image, indeed! 🐻

Captured by HiRISE on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, built and currently being flown by our @LockheedMartin space engineers.

— Lockheed Martin Space (@LMSpace) January 25, 2023