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The Face on Mars: Unmasked by New Images
By Tony Phillips
Science.NASA.gov
posted: 11:31 am ET
25 May 2001
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Cydonia is littered with mesas like the Face, but the others don't look like human heads and they've attracted little popular attention. Garvin and other members of the MGS science team have studied them carefully, however, using a laser altimeter called "MOLA" on board Mars Global Surveyor.
MOLA can measure the heights of objects with a vertical precision of 7.9 to 11.8 inches (20 to 30 centimeters). (Its horizontal resolution is 492 feet, or 150 meters.)
"We took hundreds of altitude measurements of the mesa-like features around Cydonia," said Garvin, "including the Face. The height of the Face, its volume and aspect ratio -- all of its dimensions, in fact -- are similar to the other mesas. It's not exotic in any way."
The laser altimetry data are perhaps even more convincing than overhead photos that the Face is natural. 3-D elevation maps reveal the formation from any angle, unaltered by lights and shadow. There are no eyes, no nose and no mouth!
The mesas of Cydonia are of great interest to planetary geologists because they lie in a curious part of Mars, in a transition zone between cratered highlands to the south and smoother lowland plains to the north. Some scientists think the northern plains are all that's left of an ancient Martian ocean. If so, Cydonia might have once been beachfront property.
"Ocean advocates say the mesas are just what you would expect to see near the edge of the water...that is, freestanding eroded landforms," said Garvin. "But there are many possibilities." The mesas could have been gouged by glaciers, carved by winds and water or thrust upward by vertical tectonics. "We simply don't know."
"I can imagine myself staring up at this 800-foot- (245-meter-) high mass of rock with steep flanks," he said, "the same as Middle Butte in Idaho. An apron of boulders around the base would make the climb difficult [for a robot], but a human could do it well." The latest MGS images of the Face are so detailed that Garvin already knows what route he would take -- he's even prepared a trail map! "The start and midsection of the hike would be easy, with some steep flanks in between. It would take about two hours to reach the summit."
"From there the view would be spectacular," he continued. "To the south the ground would slope upwards, toward the highlands. To the north the terrain would descend toward the plains. Looking around you would see a barren landscape dotted with buttes, mesas and impact craters," a curious mix of the bizarre and the familiar.
"Mars is a special place, it reminds us of home..., one day we are going to go there," said Garvin. That's why the Face on Mars was so popular -- it reinforced that connection. But even without an alien monument, there will be plenty for future explorers to do. Climbing the mesas of Cydonia --if that's where we start-- will be just the beginning.
Click here for more Mars news.
Tony Phillips writes for science.nasa.gov.
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