The Face on Moon South Pole is a region on the Moon (81.9° south

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

and 39.27° east

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

) that was detected automatically in an image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter by a computer system using face recognition technologies, as a result of a project that was part of the International Space App Challenge 2013 Tokyo. It is composed of craters and shadows on the Moon's surface that, together, form an image resembling a face. The "

Face on Mars Cydonia (, ) is a region on the planet Mars that has attracted both scientific and popular interest. The name originally referred to the albedo feature (distinctively coloured area) that was visible from earthbound telescopes. The area borders ...

" is a better known example of pareidolia.

Face detection and recognition

Human brains have the ability to perceive faces on the Moon due to the brain's structure. On the left hemisphere of the human brain, the

fusiform gyrus The fusiform gyrus, also known as the ''lateral occipitotemporal gyrus'','' ''is part of the temporal lobe and occipital lobe in Brodmann area 37. The fusiform gyrus is located between the lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus above, and th ...

(an area linked to recognition) detects the accuracy of how "facelike" an object is. The right fusiform gyrus then uses information from the left fusiform gyrus to conclude whether or not the image is a face. The gyrus's inherent ability to detect faces and patterns in organisms and nature has also led to a phenomenon called

pareidolia Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Common examples are perceived images of animals, ...

, in which the brain detects and recognizes faces and patterns in collections of objects where there should be none. Pareidolia partially explains why humans are biased towards perceiving faces on inanimate objects such as the Moon. Humans identify faces where there are none due to a Gestalt Principle called the Law of Prägnanz. The Law of Prägnanz states that "people will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest form(s) possible." This means that because the craters and hills of the Moon resemble the shape of eyes and a mouth, the human brain condenses those images into a human face because of familiarity, which is another Gestalt Principle.

Craters on the Moon

The craters of the Moon that make up the "face" on the south pole have been preserved for billions of years. The Moon's exterior is 16% composed of these craters. These craters have been formed by the impacts of

meteors A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...

; they can be up to 1,600 miles across. Due to the absence of an atmosphere, the Moon is not protected from impacts such as these. Craters are often covered with a mixture of fine dust and rocky debris called regolith. Some research conducted through Clementine suggests that there is also water and ice in some craters throughout the Moon. The craters themselves show a past of being filled with molten lava.

Perception of imagery on the Moon

Within Western culture, people have said to have seen "

the man in the Moon ''The Man in the Moon'' is a 1991 American coming of age drama film. It was the final film directed by Robert Mulligan, from a screenplay written by Jenny Wingfield. It stars Reese Witherspoon in her film debut, Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Em ...

". Within East Asian culture, people have seen a rabbit or hands. In addition, various people have seen different imagery such as a tree, a woman, or a toad. When people describe the images they see on the Moon, such as a face, they are not directly seeing that image displayed upon the Moon. They are rather looking at an irregular section of the Moon's surface. The irregular section consists of deep holes, called craters, and hills.

Other extraterrestrial formations

The face on the Moon is not the sole formation which appears to form an image on another astronomical object; another example is the "

", discovered during the ''Viking 1'' mission in 1976. While the face on the Moon is more inverted, the face on Mars is a three-dimensional mound resembling a human face. The "face" is located in a region called

Cydonia Cydonia may refer to: Music * ''Cydonia'' (album), a 2001 album by The Orb * "Cydonia", a track by heavy metal band Crimson Glory from '' Astronomica'' Places and jurisdictions * Kydonia or Cydonia, an ancient city state on Crete, at modern ...

. There are also multiple other formations on Mars. There is a specific cluster of mountainous terrain that looks like a smiley face and a skull-like tableland. There is also a volcano that sports a lava flow indentation that strongly resembles Kermit the Frog from the Muppets. Some see the Cookie Monster in parts of Mercury, and images resembling an eye in the Helix Nebula. On Mercury, there is a clear collection of craters that some say forms an image of Mickey Mouse.

References

External links