We humanslove to remake space to fit our imaginations, our hopes, our fears. Scattersome stars, and we'll organize them into gods, animals, heroes and what haveyou. Give us a telescope, and we'll spot irrigation ditches on Mars. Show us a mountain,we'll call it a face.

And while the practice nodoubt predates recorded history, and is employed routinely by the paranoid andhopeful, scientists are not above a little anthropomorphizing of the cosmos,either.

In fact, NASA itself reliedon humanoid references to describe the original Faceon Mars -- second-to-none among supposed conspiracies. While the agency'sscientists clearly stated that it only looked like a face, some truebelievers still think it is an alien creation.

Along the same lines, twoseparate groups of respected scientists announced just prior to Valentine's Day2000 having conveniently found the shape of human hearts in images of two solarsystem bodies -- one on Mars, one embedded in an asteroid named Eros.

What gives?

"When scientists seethings for the first time, I think it's natural to assign them names accordingto how they appear to us," says Louise Prockter of the Applied PhysicsLaboratory at Johns Hopkins University. "It helps us to discuss what we'reseeing in the images more easily,"

Prockter, who works on theteam that landedthe NEAR spacecraft on Eros Feb. 12, says it's a lot easier to call acrater "ThePaw" rather than refer to it as "the large crater with the foursmaller craters arranged around one rim." (The Paw is now officially to benamed Psyche -- all craters on Eros are to be named after great lovers. We askedfor but did not receive the list of potential suitors.)

But Louise, some of thesethings don't really look all that much like what you scientists say they looklike.

"I guess it's a bitlike clouds, where everyone can see something different if they look hardenough ... or some see what they want to see."

Like the notorious Face onMars?

"It is frustratingwhen people refuse to believe what's in front of their eyes, such as when theMars Global Surveyor camera took an image which clearly showed the so-called"Face on Mars" was nothing more than an interesting craggy rock, somepeople still didn't want to believe it."

Is this a danger to thecredibility of scientists?

"I would say it's moreproblematic, rather than dangerous. It seems that there are people out therewho will believe what they want to believe, regardless of how much hardevidence is presented to the contrary. There are still people who believe theMoon landings were an elaborate hoax, for example. Still, if it means somemembers of the public will support continued funding for space missions becausethey are convinced we're going to find a face or an obelisk, then it can'thurt."

And thatheart you folks spotted on Eros last year -- who noticed it?

"I can't remember who spottedthe heart, to be honest, but we were hoping that something suitable mightappear since we went into orbit on Valentine's Day."

So there is a method tothis nomenclative whimsy. And, for the record, the practice is not limited tofeatures in photographs. Scientists namewhole asteroids after people, from Mozart to the Beatles and, fittingly,the late science fiction author Isaac Asimov.

NEXT: Seethe Face on Mars