14 DAY TRIAL // NASA's robotic missions on Mars have sent home some new and intriguing video footage of weird phenomena happening on the red planet's surface.
Although Mars Global Surveyor robotic probe has stopped emitting and it's now officially considered "missing in action", with the causes of its disabling remaining unknown (officially it's been caused by incorrect commands that caused the battery to overheat), there are still some tools left that permit astronomers and NASA officials to receive images from the surface: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, an orbiting satellite, the Spirit rover, on the surface, as well as the Mars Phoenix mission, that's due for launch in August.
The first one has sent a recent image of a spooky anomaly, first observed in 1976 by Viking, called the Mars Face.
Having the striking appearance of a human face, one of the Cydonian mesas has long been suspected to be an artificial creation, especially by ufologists, but not only.
The official explanation from NASA was that it's an optical illusion, an example of pareidolia (best explained by "it's all in your mind"), depending on viewing angle and angle of illumination.
However, a few, most notably Richard C. Hoagland, believe it to be evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization along with other features they believe are present, such as apparent pyramids, which they argue are part of a ruined city.
Another strange apparition is a dust devil, a mini tornado that spins on the Martian surface.
Though these dust devils seem to have random appearances, with no obvious tornado clouds to generate them, this one was acting very strange, collapsing right in front of the camera of the Spirit rover, like a ghost being exorcised.
An intriguing rock formation called "Home Plate," has also drawn the attention of the astronomers.
This nickname is used by NASA scientists to refer to a geological feature, a rocky outcrop that appears to show layered features, whose shape is similar to a baseball home plate, the size of a house, but with a flat-topped shape.
Astronomers are studying all these strange appearances and trying to explain the formation mechanisms, so we eagerly wait for the official explanations...
The latest images, which are available in file sizes up to 303 megabytes, are meant to remove much of the mystery. Nevertheless, HiRISE's views of the eerie Martian terrain, including the Face as well as the Red Planet's rippled dunes and layered deposits, are as haunting as ever.