Avid Amatuer Astronomer Captures 'Happy Face' In Mars

'Pahrump Hills' Region, Mars — A color mosaic taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover Mast Camera (mastcam) shows strata exposed along the margins of the valleys in the "Pahrump Hills" region on Mars in this undated handout photo courtesy of NASA. After 18 months of driving, scientists on September 11, 2014, announced that Curiosity had arrived at the base of Mount Sharp ahead of schedule, thanks to a somewhat serendipitous decision to take an alternative path that would be gentler on the rover's damaged wheels. Within two weeks, Curiosity will reach an outcrop of rock called Pahrump Hills, where the first drill samples of Mount Sharp real estate will be made. Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/

An avid amateur astronomer known as TheCalifornian on YouTube noticed what looks like a smiling face, that measured more than 230 kilometres in diameter. He captured a screenshot of it and posted a video on YouTube with the title, "Welcome To Mars! A Smile and a Wave."

TheCalifornian observed the image when he was exploring Mars on the extra-terrestrial version of Google Earth. Express.co.uk wrote that Google had launched Google Mars service along with NASA in 2009. This program allowed the users to explore the surface of Mars for free on the Internet. The program gives the users an option to switch between different kinds of data which include elevation, visible surface and infrared data.

The photo appeared to look like a satellite shot of the Galle crater, but this information is still yet to be confirmed. The Galle crater was named after Johann Gottfried Gale, a German astronomer at the Berlin Observatory. He was the first person to notice the planet Neptune.

Scott C Waring of UFO Sightings Daily said that he had seen the smiling face before and that he was baffled at what it was made from. He continued that at one point it looked like trees, but in another, it looked like ancient walls and building foundations. He mentioned that the smiling face showed that at least one of the species in Mars had a sense of humour. Scott also said that Bob Lazar of Area 51 and Friendship Case in Italy confirmed that there were around 56 space-faring species in the solar system.

The "smiling face" was initially discovered in January 2008 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Apart from posting about the "smiling face" which is not a new discovery, TheCalifornian had posted another video with claims that it showed an image of the Virgin Mary on Mars. The images in the video was similar to several biblical illustrations. It showed a robed woman whose arms were stretched out.

The NASA Website has a post about the "smiling face" as well. It reads that in the second week of March 1999, the Mars Orbiter Camera was welcomed to the view of the "Happy Face Crater." It posted an image of the crater and said that the bluish-white tone on the image was due to wintertime frost.

TheCalifornian posted a video of his finding on Nov 3 and since then, has garnered over 37,000 views. He has also managed to get 14 comments. One of the comments was about how the YouTube user could not find the face on Google Mars and there were other comments which praised TheCalifornian for making such a great discovery.