We humans love to remake space to fit our imaginations, our hopes, our fears. Scatter some stars, and we'll organize them into gods, animals, heroes and what have you. 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 no doubt predates recorded history, and is employed routinely by the paranoid and hopeful, scientists are not above a little anthropomorphizing of the cosmos, either.

In fact, NASA itself relied on humanoid references to describe the original Face on Mars -- second-to-none among supposed conspiracies. While the agency's scientists clearly stated that it only looked like a face, some true believers still think it is an alien creation.

Along the same lines, two separate groups of respected scientists announced just prior to Valentine's Day 2000 having conveniently found the shape of human hearts in images of two solar system bodies -- one on Mars, one embedded in an asteroid named Eros.

What gives?

"When scientists see things for the first time, I think it's natural to assign them names according to how they appear to us," says Louise Prockter of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. "It helps us to discuss what we're seeing in the images more easily,"

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

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

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

Like the notorious Face on Mars?

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

Is this a danger to the credibility of scientists?

"I would say it's more problematic, rather than dangerous. It seems that there are people out there who will believe what they want to believe, regardless of how much hard evidence is presented to the contrary. There are still people who believe the Moon landings were an elaborate hoax, for example. Still, if it means some members of the public will support continued funding for space missions because they are convinced we're going to find a face or an obelisk, then it can't hurt."

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

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

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

NEXT: See the Face on Mars