The crater is in Aonia Terra, a highland region in the southern mountains of Mars (ESA)
A stunning image taken by a spaceship orbiting Mars captured a crater that looks like a huge, unblinking eye on the surface of the Red Planet.
The image shows Aonia Terra, a mountainous region in the southern mountains of Mars, and was photographed by the ESA Mars Express on April 25, 2022.
The 19-kilometer unnamed crater in the center of the image is nestled in a landscape of winding canals that probably carried liquid water to the surface of Mars about 3.5-4 billion years ago.
The canals appear to be partially filled with dark material, and in some places appear to be actually elevated above the surrounding ground.
Researchers say there are various possible explanations for this – possibly an erosion-resistant sediment that settled to the bottom of the canals when water flowed through them, or the canals were filled with lava later in the history of Mars.
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Inside the crater, a dark field of dunes lies on a lighter surface. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the crater is filled with more potholes and cone-shaped hills.
These are proof that many different materials have accumulated inside the crater.
Aonia Terra is famous for its impressive craters. Near the crater shown in this image is the 200 km wide Lowell Crater.
Lowell is thought to have formed nearly four billion years ago, during the “late heavy bombardment” period of the solar system, when large numbers of asteroids crashed into rocky planets.
Aonia Terra is named after a feature called Aonia, a dark spot on the surface of Mars that can be seen from Earth, even with rudimentary telescopes.
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Of course, the crater is not an eye – or actually biological in some way – but it emphasizes the tendency of man to see biological characteristics in inorganic objects.
In the 1970s, a NASA image of Mars appeared to show a human face, leading observers to wonder if a lost civilization had ever flourished on the Red Planet.
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Perspective view of the crater assembled from Mars Express (ESA) data
But The Face of Mars was not evidence of any Martian civilization – it simply showed the human tendency to see human faces in everything from plants to rocks to houses.
A study by UNSW researchers in Sydney sheds light on why people are focused on seeing faces wherever we look.
In an article published in the journal Psychological Science, lead researcher Dr. Colin Palmer says that “facial pareidolia” – the phenomenon of seeing faces in everyday objects – is related to how we see and understand real human faces.
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Palmer says, “Pages on websites like Flickr and Reddit have amassed thousands of pictures of everyday objects that look like faces provided by users around the world.”
“A striking feature of these objects is that they not only look like faces, but can even convey a sense of personality or social significance.
“For example, the windows of a house may look like two eyes watching you, and the capsicum may have a happy expression on its face.
“This basic pattern of features that defines the human face is something our brains are particularly attuned to and are likely to draw our attention to objects with pareidolia.
“But facial perception is not just about noticing a person’s presence. We also need to recognize who this person is and read information from his face, such as whether he is paying attention to us and whether he is happy or upset. “
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Researchers have found that pareidolia appears to activate the same mechanisms in the brain that extract important social information when one person watches another.
They tested this using a process known as “sensory adaptation,” a type of visual illusion in which a person’s perception is influenced by what has been seen recently.
Dr. Palmer believes that facial pareidolia is a product of our evolution, noting that studies have observed the phenomenon among monkeys, which suggests that brain function is inherited from primates.
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