Photos: Mahatma Gandhi's face on Mars surface? [PHOTOS]
By IB Times Staff Reporter | Jun 15, 2011 01:33 AM EDT
An Italian space enthusiast named Matteo Lanneo claimed to have found a structure on the face of Mars that looks like Mahatma Gandhi.
He said that he found the structure while going through the pictures of the planet in the Google Mars, a new online map pieced together from satellite images of the Red Planet.
The head appears to have a moustache and shaven, and has prominent eyebrows, the Daily Mail reported. Lanneo said the structure is located at Latitude 33°12'29.82"N, Longitude 12°55'51.21"W.
The latest Gandhi structure reminds us of the Face on Mars, a hill photographed by NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter.
Space enthusiasts said that the structure was built by aliens. But later on, an image taken with NASA's HiRISE camera in 2010 clarified that the face was just a large, rocky hill.
Humans have been finding interesting objects on the Martian surface for centuries. The phenomenon of seeing faces is called "pareidolia" - where a stimulus is perceived as having significance, be it a symbol seen in a cloud or a face on a piece of toast, an IANS report said.
According to scientists, the phenomenon occurs because humans tend to recognize familiar objects as a survival technique.
Check out some interesting images of Mars' surface showing structures that look like man-made.
A Martian surface feature that one man says looks like the profile of Mahatma Gandhi.
Source: Matteo Ianneo/ESA/Google Maps/
Photo taken of the Gandhi face geologic feature by the Mars Express Orbiter.
Source: ASU Mars Space Flight Facility
NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Spirit spent the closing months of 2007.
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Unive
NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft photographed this region in the northern latitudes of Mars on July 25, 1976 while searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander.
Source: NASA
