Almost exactly a month after NASA’s Perseverance rover left a sample tube on the surface of Mars that looked like a Star Wars lightsaber, photos from space have come down…and the internet is equally convinced that Paddington Bear has made his way to the red planet. The photo features a crater on the surface of the planet, with an L-shaped curve at the bottom, and a pair of small, black pockmarks near the top on either side. The result creates the optical illusion that the crater looks like a bear’s face — and specifically, a bear with a very wide head.
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Or maybe a wide-brimmed hat. Hence, Paddington.
You can see the photo below.
It has been almost two years since the first photos started streaming down from Perseverance.
“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk at the time. “The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet in the 2030s.”
Perseverance was described by NASA as being “about the size of a car” and clocking in at 2,263 pounds. For the next couple of weeks it will be subject to tests by NASA to make sure it’s suited to continue its main mission, a two year study of Mars’ Jezero Crater where it will study the rock, sediment, and river delta to learn more about the geology of the area and what the past climate of Mars was like. The press release also notes, that Perseverance’s mission will be to search for “signs of ancient microbial life.”
