快猫短视频

Washington DC

DETAILED photographs of the 鈥渇ace鈥� on Mars will be posted on the Internet
immediately they are sent back by NASA鈥檚 Mars Global Surveyor. The face, about
1.5 kilometres across, was spotted in July 1976 in pictures from the Viking 1
orbiter. NASA hopes the new images will silence a small group of enthusiasts who
tout the face as evidence that there was once a civilisation on Mars.

The Mars Global Surveyor, due for launch next month, should go into orbit
around the Red Planet in September 1997. It will photograph the face and the
surrounding terrain using a high-precision camera with a resolution of 2 to
3 metres鈥攎ore than ten times as sharp as Viking 1鈥檚 pictures.

Many people who believe that the face-like feature was erected by intelligent
beings argue that nearby patterns recorded by Viking 1 are also artificial
structures. The patterns occupy a region called Cydonia, on the edge of a
mountain range in the planet鈥檚 northern hemisphere. The field of view of the
Global Surveyor鈥檚 camera is only about 3 kilometres across, so the probe will
have to take multiple pictures on several orbits to produce a comprehensive
picture of the Cydonia region.

Conspiracy theorists had claimed that NASA would avoid photographing the
region again. But Arden Albee of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, NASA鈥檚 project scientist for the Mars Global Surveyor, says that the
space agency will announce in advance when the probe is approaching Cydonia and
will release any images as soon as possible after they are received. 鈥淲e hope
that this will satisfy the people who are asking the questions,鈥� he says.