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LOS ANGELES: Yogi, Paddington, and Winnie the Pooh, please step forward. A new bear has arrived in town. Or at least on Mars.
A smiling teddy bear appears to have been etched into the surface of our nearest planetary neighbour, waiting for a passing satellite to notice it.
And that's exactly what occurred when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter went over last month, carrying the most powerful camera ever to journey into the Solar System.
Scientists running the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), which has been orbiting Mars since 2006, analysed the data that returned to Earth and have now published an image of the face.
"There's a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head," according to experts at the University of Arizona, which runs the kit.
Each feature on the 2,000-metre (1.25-mile)-wide face has a probable explanation that clues to how active the planet's surface is.
"The circular fracture pattern might be caused by a deposit settling over a buried impact crater," the scientists speculated.
"Is the nose a volcanic or mud vent, and the deposit lava or mud flows?"
HiRISE, one of six sensors aboard the Orbiter, takes super-detailed images of Mars, assisting in the mapping of the surface for future expeditions by people or robots.
Over the previous ten years, the team has captured photographs of avalanches as they occurred and detected dark flows that may be liquids.
They've also discovered dust devils swirling around the Martian surface, as well as a feature that some have mistaken for "Star Trek's" Starfleet logo.
They have not, however, discovered the small green men that were formerly widely thought to inhabit the planet.
