THE FACE
Perhaps no other aspect of Mars has captured peoples' imaginations that an image captured by a Viking space probe of what appears to be a face on the planet, said to be in the Sedonia regions.
The early photo appeared to show the face, and UFO people and authors with a book to sell claimed that the face was evidence that an ancient civilization once lived on the planet. UFOlogists scoffed when NASA promised to take a picture of the region again with the Mars Global Surveyor, which has been in orbit around the planet since 1997.
Well, the photo of the "face" has been taken again, as NASA promised. You be the judge. Click the small picture below to see the enlarged view. The photo on the left is the orginal photo, and the other two are various of the same region with picture enhancements.
Do you see evidence of an ancient Martian civilization? I'd be interested in hearing your comments. E-mail me at [email protected].
Mars also has a violent -- natural -- face. This article was written on Oct. 13, 1998 on CNN Interactive's web site.
Mars a place of violent winds and floods, researchers find
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The rock and soil of Mars bear evidence that the red
planet is a far more violent place than Earth, with storm winds gusting to
350 mph and powerful floods that once erupted across vast areas.
"Mars is a small planet that does things in a very big way," John Pearl of
Goddard Space Flight Center said at a meeting Monday of the planetary
division of the American Astronomical Society.
Photos from the Mars Global Surveyor, which has been orbiting the planet
for 13 months, show that Mars is scoured by high-speed winds in storms
that cover virtually an entire side of the planet, and that flood waters have
exploded out of dammed up craters at speeds of more than 100 mph.
"The floods could have lasted for months," said Michael C. Malin, a
research scientist on the Mars Observer team who analyzed one such
flood. The water flow, he said, was 1,000 times greater than floods that
have struck the U.S. Midwest in recent years.
The waters poured out of a high crater that towers over nearby flat plains
and churned across the planet's surface, rolling huge boulders and carving
canyons in a matter of weeks. Eventually, the water slowed and spread
out into a flat basin and turned into a mud flow.
Malin said the water then either evaporated into the dry Martian atmosphere
or seeped back into the soil.
The water may have been the result of a massive impact from an asteroid.
Malin speculated that an impact smashed far beneath the surface and
created a large crater with raised sides. Subsurface water flowed into the
crater, eventually creating a lake that he estimated to be 1,600 feet deep
and the size of the state of Utah.
When the sides of the crater eroded away, the water was released in one
massive spill and began flowing in 300-foot-deep cascades traveling at
about 130 mph. Satellite instruments monitoring a Martian storm clocked
winds that raged at 360 mph -- almost five times stronger than a minimum
hurricane on Earth said Pearl.
He said the satellite observed one storm from start to finish. In just 36
hours, said Pearl, a small disturbance covering about 60 square miles
grew to a monster covering more than 1,000 miles.
"It was like a small storm that grew up to cover all of the western United
States," said Pearl.
It is the dust in the Mars atmosphere that may make its storms so violent,
he said. The suspended particles capture sunlight and heat up rapidly,
rising by about 20 degrees just after sunrise. The captured heat sets off a
vortex of moving air that grows and grows until it dwarfs an earthly
hurricane.
Other photos have captured dust devils like those frequently seen in
American deserts. These whirling disturbances suck up dust and carry it
high into the air. Though the dust devils lack the great violence, they help
keep the Mars atmosphere filled with the red dust that absorbs sunlight
and helps to energize the major storms.
Related sites:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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