Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes another look at the non-face on Mars
Click for original image
In 2007, shortly after it began science operations in Mars orbit, the science team for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) pointed its high resolution camera at the so-called “Face on Mars”, taking a picture that confirmed (as had Mars Global Surveyor several years earlier) that this “face” was a non-face, simply a mesa whose features made it appear roughly facelike in low resolution imagery.
Now, more than sixteen years later, scientists have used MRO to take a new picture of the non-face mesa. That picture is to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here. Compared to the 2007 photo the new photo has far better lighting conditions, revealing many details on the mesa’s eastern half that were mostly obscured by shadows previously.
In fact, these new details strongly suggest that the depression on the mesa’s eastern slopes harbors a decaying glacier. At least, that is what the features there resemble.
This conclusion is not unreasonable, considering the non-face’s location as shown on the overview map to the right. Though it is far to the west from the region I label glacier country, it is in the same mid-latitudes. The northern lowland plains in this area have many near-surface ice features. For example, in the picture above it appears that an ice sheet abuts the base of this mesa on both its northeast and northwest sides.
Scientists probably decided to take a second picture of this mesa to see if anything had changed in the subsequent sixteen years. Though it appears nothing has changed, based on the resolution of the picture above, a much more detailed look will be required to confirm that conclusion. The new observations actually included two pictures, the one above taken on November 4, 2023, and a second taken on October 1, 2023. Using both together scientists will be able to create a 3-dimensional stereoscopic view, which will further help them find any changes from the 2007 image.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
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Click for original image
In 2007, shortly after it began science operations in Mars orbit, the science team for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) pointed its high resolution camera at the so-called “Face on Mars”, taking a picture that confirmed (as had Mars Global Surveyor several years earlier) that this “face” was a non-face, simply a mesa whose features made it appear roughly facelike in low resolution imagery.
Now, more than sixteen years later, scientists have used MRO to take a new picture of the non-face mesa. That picture is to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here. Compared to the 2007 photo the new photo has far better lighting conditions, revealing many details on the mesa’s eastern half that were mostly obscured by shadows previously.
In fact, these new details strongly suggest that the depression on the mesa’s eastern slopes harbors a decaying glacier. At least, that is what the features there resemble.
This conclusion is not unreasonable, considering the non-face’s location as shown on the overview map to the right. Though it is far to the west from the region I label glacier country, it is in the same mid-latitudes. The northern lowland plains in this area have many near-surface ice features. For example, in the picture above it appears that an ice sheet abuts the base of this mesa on both its northeast and northwest sides.
Scientists probably decided to take a second picture of this mesa to see if anything had changed in the subsequent sixteen years. Though it appears nothing has changed, based on the resolution of the picture above, a much more detailed look will be required to confirm that conclusion. The new observations actually included two pictures, the one above taken on November 4, 2023, and a second taken on October 1, 2023. Using both together scientists will be able to create a 3-dimensional stereoscopic view, which will further help them find any changes from the 2007 image.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It will always be known as the face on Mars.
Bob Zimmerman,
The Face on Mars is, in fact, a “face”.
It’s just that it has been seeing the same plastic surgeon as John Kerry.
Try to accept known facts.
Facts won’t stop the True Believers ™. They will insist that either a secret mission from Area 51 set demolition charges and blew up the face or the Reptiloids in NASA had their Space Alien allies do it.
Col B – How did you find out the truth????!!!!!??????!!!!
We won’t know until we get there. If we do get there and it really is some form of archeology, would they tell us?
There was an earlier high-resolution image taken right around the turn of the century. I had a subscription to AWST at the time and showed the picture to my co-workers. Just an eroded mesa, what a let-down!
Here’ the 2007 hi-res image: https://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/PSP/ORB_003200_003299/PSP_003234_2210/PSP_003234_2210_RED.abrowse.jpg
Hartely and David M Cook: I do link to this 2007 image in my post itself. Why did you not notice?
A 3 km long mesa that is Not A Face.
Not A Face Yet.
Not until we get there with a couple bulldozers.
Next you’ll be telling us that that the five sided pyramid built by an alien race isn’t real either… Even though they made a documentary about it narrated by Arnold Schwarzenegger? Totaled out recall or something….
What no one has told us, and can only be revealed now, is that a few people with way too much time on their hands became very, very inebriated, also known in some vernaculars as ‘faced’ and saw faces in many places.
My other favorite is the Cydonia Pyramid Complex. I remember books written on the Cydonia Pyramid Complex. Some even postulated that the humans on Earth are the ancestors of the Cydonia Pyramid Complex. If so, do we all have “a right to return” and claim our piece of Martian real estate?