The most famous face in the solar system.
In 1976 NASA's Viking 1 orbiter photographed a hill in the Cydonia region that, in the low-resolution image, looked uncannily like a giant human face staring up from Mars. It became one of the most argued-over images in space history.
Claim your plot here →In July 1976, Viking 1 snapped a mesa in Cydonia. In grainy resolution and slanting shadow it looked eerily like a face — complete with eyes, nose and mouth. It sparked decades of books, documentaries and conspiracy theories about ancient Martian civilizations.
Twenty-five years later, sharper cameras on Mars Global Surveyor and later HiRISE revealed the truth: an ordinary wind-eroded hill. The "face" was a classic case of pareidolia — the brain's habit of seeing faces in random shapes. Still, few Mars landmarks are as legendary.