
New images from NASA's Curiosity rover show strange features on the planet's surface.
According to Fox News, a recent image from NASA’s Curiosity, the rover traversing the surface of Mars, features something that looks remarkably like a woman. No, it’s not Martian women trying to contact Earth. It is most likely a strangely shaped rock or dirt formation.
The reason for this sight which appears to be a woman is the phenomenon known as pareidolia, which is the term for the illusion of an image only visible to the human mind. The tendency of the brain to detect nonexistent images in unfamiliar patterns is well documented. Many people see distinct images in cloud formations, the famous “man in the moon,” is merely a grouping of topographical features resembling a face, and for millennia humans have seen patterns in the stars above.
More specifically, this illusion is an example of apophenia, which is the perceptions of a nonexistent pattern in a group of unfamiliar data. Although there is almost certainly no woman on Mars, the image provided by Curiosty provides a new look at the planet’s surface, as well as a grand opening for NASA’s new website which it will use to pick a new landing site for its 2020 mission.
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