'Face' on Comet 67P Spotted by Rosetta Spacecraft (Photo)

'Face' on Comet 67P
German Aerospace Center's youth portal DLR_next tweeted this photo showing the "face" on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Aug. 6, 2014. (Image credit: DLR_next (via Twitter as ‏@DLR_next))

If you're a fan of the "Face on Mars," then you might just have a new best friend. A new photo from Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has captured what appears to be a face on a comet in deep space, even if it's only a fun optical illusion.

Rosetta captured the photo of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Sunday (Aug. 3) while en route to its historic arrival at the comet earlier today (Aug. 6). The image shows the 2.5-mile-wide (4 kilometers) comet in its entirety, with the face illusion visible on the right side of the comet.

Officials with the German Aerospace Center's youth portal DLR_next (@DLR_next) spotted the optical illusion and pointed it out on Twitterwith several tongue-in-cheek posts today. DLR is one of the European Space Agency members participating in the Rosetta comet-chasing mission.

Schon "the face" entdeckt? ;-) pic.twitter.com/Uk41I9HOAb

Seeing faces in space photos is nothing new. They are examples of pareidolia, in which the human brain perceives faces, animals or other shape patterns in random images.

A photo taken by NASA's Viking 1 Mars orbiter in 1976 sparked infamous claims of a "Face on Mars." Subsequent observations by other spacecraft, like NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Europe's Mars Express, have proven the Face on Mars was just a trick of light and shadows.

Other examples of false sightings in space include a rat on Mars, an alien Bio Base and — most recently — a strange flash of light captured by NASA's Curiosity rover.

Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/C-G (as it is known) after a 10-year and 4-billion-mile chase (6.4 billion km) across the solar system. The probe has already begun snapping stunning close-up photos of the comet.

Rosetta is the first spacecraft ever to orbit a comet and will spend the next year and a half studying Comet 67P/C-G in extraordinary detail. In November, Rosetta is expected to drop its lander Philae onto the comet's surface for an even closer look.

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Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.