Cydonia (/sɪˈdoʊniə/, /saɪˈdoʊniə/) is a region on the planet
Mars that has attracted both scientific[1] and popular interest.[2][3] The name originally referred to the
albedo feature (distinctively coloured area) that was visible from earthbound
telescopes. The area borders the plains of
Acidalia Planitia and the highlands of
Arabia Terra.[4] The region includes the named features Cydonia Mensae, an area of flat-topped
mesa-like features; Cydonia Colles, a region of small
hills or
knobs; and Cydonia Labyrinthus, a complex of intersecting valleys.[5][6] As with other
albedo features on Mars, the name Cydonia was
drawn from classical antiquity, in this case from Kydonia (
Ancient Greek: Κυδωνία;
Latin: Cydonia), a historic polis (city state) on the island of
Crete.[7]
Cydonia contains the "Face on Mars", located about halfway between the craters
Arandas and
Bamberg.[4]
Location
Cydonia lies in the planet's northern hemisphere in a transitional zone between the heavily
cratered regions to the south and relatively smooth
plains to the north. Some
planetologists believe that the northern plains may once have been
ocean beds,[8] and that Cydonia may once have been a
coastal zone.[9] It is in the
Mare Acidalium quadrangle.
"Face on Mars"
Cydonia was first imaged in detail by the Viking 1 and Viking 2 orbiters. Eighteen images of the Cydonia region were taken by the orbiters, of which seven have resolutions better than 250 m/
pixel (820 ft/pixel). The other eleven images have resolutions that are worse than 550 m/pixel (1800 ft/pixel) and are of limited use for studying surface features. Of the seven good images, the lighting and time at which two pairs of images were taken are so close as to reduce the number to five distinct images. The Mission to Mars: Viking Orbiter Images of Mars CD-ROM set image numbers for these are: 035A72 (VO-1010), 070A13 (VO-1011), 561A25 (VO-1021), 673B54 & 673B56 (VO-1063), and 753A33 & 753A34 (VO-1028).[11][12]
In one of the images taken by Viking 1 on July 25, 1976, a two-kilometre-long (1.2 mi) Cydonian mesa, situated at 40.75° north
latitude and 9.46° west
longitude,[13] had the appearance of a
humanoid face. When the image was originally acquired, Viking chief scientist Gerry Soffen dismissed the "Face on Mars" in image 035A72[14] as a "trick of light and shadow".[15][16] A second image, 070A13, also shows the "face", and was acquired 35 Viking orbits later at a different sun-angle from the 035A72 image. This latter discovery was made independently by Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar, two computer engineers at
NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center. DiPietro and Molenaar discovered the two misfiled images, Viking frames 035A72 and 070A13, while searching through NASA archives.[17] The resolution of these images was of about 50 m/pixel.[18]
Later imagery
More than 20 years after the Viking 1 images were taken, a succession of spacecraft visited Mars and made new observations of the Cydonia region. These spacecraft have included NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (1997–2006) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006–),[19] and the
European Space Agency's Mars Express probe (2003–).[20] In contrast to the relatively low resolution of the Viking images of Cydonia, these new platforms afford much improved resolution. For instance, the Mars Express images are at a resolution of 14 m/pixel (46 ft/pixel) or better. By combining data from the
High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express probe and the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor it has been possible to create a three-dimensional representation of the "Face on Mars".[21]
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image by its
HiRISE camera of the "Face on Mars" (2007). Viking Orbiter image inset in bottom right corner (1976).
While accepting the "face" as a subject for scientific study, astronomer
Carl Sagan criticized much of the speculation concerning it in the chapter "The Man in the Moon and the Face on Mars" in his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World.[33][34] The
shape-from-shading work by Mark J. Carlotto was used by Sagan in a chapter of his famous
Cosmos series.[35] In 1998 a news article about the "Space Face" quoted a scientist talking about deciphering "intelligent design" in nature. A cutting of this was used by
Charles Thaxton as an overhead visual for a lecture at Princeton, in his first public use of the term "
intelligent design" as a substitute for
creation science.[36]
The "face" is also a common topic among
skeptics groups, who use it as an example of
credulity.[37] They point out that there are other faces on Mars but these do not elicit the same level of study. One example is the
Galle Crater, which takes the form of a
smiley, while others resemble
Kermit the Frog or other celebrities.[38] On this latter similarity,
Discover magazine's "Skeptical Eye" column ridiculed Hoagland's claims, asking if he believed the aliens were fans of Sesame Street.[17][39]
Interactive Mars map
See also
Apophenia – Tendency to perceive connections between unrelated things
^Head III, J.W.; Kreslavsky, M.; Hiesinger, H.; Ivanov, M.; Pratt, Stephen; Seibert, N.; Smith, D.E.; Zuber, M.T. (December 15, 1998). "Oceans in the past history of Mars: Tests for their presence using Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data". Geophysical Research Letters. 25 (24): 4401–4404.
Bibcode:
1998GeoRL..25.4401H.
doi:
10.1029/1998GL900116.
S2CID9137761.
^Normand Baillargeon, A Short Course in Intellectual Self Defense: Find Your Inner Chomsky, p. 177 (Seven Stories Press, 2007).
ISBN978-1-58322-765-7
^Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins, Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends... and Pseudoscience begins (Joseph Henry Press, 2001).
ISBN0-309-17135-0
^Witham, Larry (2005). Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America. Oxford University Press. p.
221.
ISBN978-0-19-518281-1.