World of the Bizarre

Beaker the Muppet has been spotted on Mars

By T.K. Randall
August 17, 2018

Image: OSIRIS Mars True Color
Credit: ESA and MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA / CC BY-SA 3.0 (adapted) We've seen a lot of strange and unusual items on the surface of Mars over the years including everything from a set of traffic lights to a perfect reproduction of President Obama's head.

The explanation behind these peculiar sightings is a phenomenon known as pareidolia - the tendency for the human brain to see meaningful shapes in otherwise abstract patterns.This latest example, which was posted on Twitter by NASA itself, shows an unusual surface feature that, as it turns out, happens to bear more than a passing resemblance to Beaker - the hapless assistant of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew from Jim Henson's The Muppet Show.

The picture was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

And today's HiPOD offers up a nice dose of pareidolia as well!#CannotUnsee pic.twitter.com/ZWtdfCCH3d

— HiRISE (NASA) (@HiRISE) August 13, 2018

Source: Science Alert

Tags: Mars, Pareidolia