Astronomers of the University of Arizona HiRISE project have published a picture of the Red Planet, in which the "face" of a huge Martian bear looks into the most powerful interplanetary camera. A round muzzle with beady eyes, a nose and an open mouth may be, according to scientists, a ruined hill above an ancient crater and deposits of lava and mud, which are reinforced by the human tendency to find faces everywhere.

"There is a hill with a V-shaped structure of destruction (nose), two craters (eyes) and a circular pattern (head). The circular nature of the destruction may be caused by sediment deposition over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud hole, and the sediment may be lava flows or mud," suggest specialists servicing the HiRISE camera.

The HiRISE camera — the largest ever sent into space — is installed on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He sent a photo of the "bear" to Earth after flying about 250 kilometers above the surface of Mars in December 2022. For scientists, this drawing is evidence of the incredible diversity of geological formations on the fourth planet from the Sun.

According to media reports, the scale of the image indicates that the diameter of the "bear's muzzle" reaches about two kilometers.