Scientists looking at the surface of Mars have spotted what looks like a bear staring back at them.
A camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took a photo of the formation on Dec. 12. It was shared Wednesday by the University of Arizona, which operates the camera.
A hill with a V-shaped collapse structure forms the bear’s nose and a circular fracture pattern creates the head, the university’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory explained in the blog for its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
“The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?” it said.
This is due to a tendency for the human brain to try to see recognizable shapes in objects or data that are otherwise not familiar to us, known as pareidolia.
