快猫短视频

THE alleged 鈥渇ace鈥� on the Red Planet has turned out to be no more than a
plain old hummocky hill. A detailed image beamed back by NASA鈥檚 Mars Global
Surveyor last week dashed the hopes of anyone expecting to find the face-like
edifice of a lost civilisation. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just an ordinary looking hill,鈥� says Ron
Baalke of NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 鈥淲ith no
shadows, there are no facial features present at all.鈥�

The face, about 1.5 kilometres across, was spotted more than 20 years ago in
Viking spacecraft photos of the Cydonia region of Mars. In a 1976 press release,
NASA scientists drew attention to the remarkable face-like appearance of the
hill. What they didn鈥檛 expect was that some people, notably American journalist
Richard Hoagland, would take their comments seriously.

In articles and books, Hoagland promoted the view that a lost civilisation of
intelligent Martians constructed the face, as well as 鈥減yramid-shaped鈥� features
nearby. Ever since, NASA has been accused of withholding information on the
face. Even the loss of the Mars Observer spacecraft in August 1993 was seen by
believers in the conspiracy as a cover-up to hide the discovery of Martian
life.

To settle the issue, NASA decided to take a close look at the face with the
keen-eyed camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor. Last week they published all
the observations, including raw, unprocessed data, on the Internet. However, the
new photo is unlikely to silence the face fans, who have already published their
own processed version of the images.