http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/PSP/release_0021.php

Rather smallish (303mb) image of the 'face' that launched a thousand websites. Super detail though..nice boulders.

The Juventae Chasm image is rather dramatic - very nicely so.

Good to see they've hit it and can now ignore the emails that will have been pouring in about it. Every HiRISE image is a joy to behold - but this one tells us what we knew with MOC...it's an ordinary little hill. The response from the usual places will be interesting - these two crops from the full image will grab his attention I am sure.

Ladies and gentlemen, a moment's silence on this sad day, please...

Click to view attachment

Finally, after all these years, she can rest in peace...

Actually, that's not going to happen, is it? Mr H will no doubt find a way to talk around the new pic and spin it into actual proof that it is is a Face... and doesn't that "boulder" rolling oh-so-conveniently down the slope there look supiciously like a martian insectoid fleeing the imminent arrival of a dust storm..?

And sorry to disagree with our High Commander, but that is NEVER going to be "just an ordinary little hill". When there are people living on Mars they - and later tourists and sightseers - will flock there to see "The Face" for themselves, and have their photos taken by and on top of it. Give it a few decades and there'll be a "Face Museum" in its shadow, complete with a talking RH hologram describing the story of its "discovery", insisting to the last that it really is a statue; a rip off price gift shop where you can buy Face badges, magnets, bookmarks and erasers and the obligatory panoramic posters; a restaurant with a view of the Face and a full "Face Menu", the works...

MOC killed it years ago.

Yes, I know that... we know that, here on UMSF... but I think that this time the verdict will stick with more people "out there".

Yup - time of death was 5 April 1998 12:39 AM PST

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/4_6_98_face_release/

If I'm honest, I see more RH 'fodder' in the HiRISE image than I did in the MOC image, I think he's going to love it.

("I'm not dead yet")

That thing is never going to die. A few hundred years from now there'll be a "Face on Mars" theme park built on and around that hill for the reeeaaally rich.

I like the Hiroc description: "Popular Landform"

Well, obviously the HiRISE guys 'n gals didn't consider it "dead" or they wouldn't have gone to the time, trouble and expense of imaging it again.

Great picture, amazing detail, amazing camera.

The TRUTH is quite obvious to me.

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Of course we considered it dead, certain people were just tired of constantly getting requests for it... I think it's been nearly a year since the first request to photograph the site with HiRISE, after a while you do tend to get a bit annoyed by it... It just so happened that MRO passed right over the site when we had some bandwidth free, so we took a NADIR shot of the area. That also explains the small size. I'm amazed though that the color strip, which incidentally is smaller than the face itself, happens to pass over the most interesting areas of the landform.

Not suggesting you didn't consider the issue of what it actually was dead, I meant the public interest in it...

Oh never mind.

I always thought it was more like this muppet:

You might also notice that this is perhaps the first time since the original Viking picture that this picture has been released without a press release. It's a good sign, meaning that it's not the general public so much as a few people who are interested in it.

I might also add that the first 3 people that I talked to about HiWeb all stated that we should take "A picture of that face on Mars", and only one of the 3 has any connections at all to conspiracy theories.

I'm still laughing after 5min, thanks!

Personally, about last release, I'm a lot more impressed by Layered Deposits in Aureum Chaos and Juventae Chasma

Believe me, many of the "general public" are still very interested in it, or at least the story behind it. Whenever I give an Outreach talk - which is once a week or so - there are always two or three people who want to know the latest on it, or want to see any new pictures of it. Maybe not because they believe it's artificial, but because it's an interesting story, almost an urban myth now. I personally think of it as a gift to Outreach speakers and lecturers, because it allows us to open a discussion about landforms and geography and geology with a very well known image, and then, after explaining the illusion, go on to show and describe other features and processes. I get to show the classic Viking image and more recent ones, and will now be showing this new HiRISE one too. Bit of a win-win situation really.

I hope this finally goes the way of the Canals of Mars in the public consciousness.... but there will always be "believers" no matter what you do.

And as for the actual face, I, for the public record, have always been a proud member of the Dr. Zaius interpretation school.

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I wish I had said this -
You are right that this story is an excellent "teachable moment" for geography- and it also serves as an wonderful starting point to discuss the process of science and its differences from pseudo stuff, not to mention pareidolia and how we know what we know.

Well folks, looks like it's official, after only two days, Hoagland's found out about the "Popular landform", he hasn't posted anything to his site yet, but there is a direct link, see his site. It should be pretty comedic once it comes out in full.

Well obviously you guys are hiding the aliens that are currently working to fix the damage to the part of the face

Darn, I must have missed one...

This view of the dark dunes has been stuck in my mind...

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/PSP/di...PSP_002860_1650

... and I just realized what it reminds me of: One of those M.C. Escher metamorphosis prints:

http://www.etropolis.com/escher/scroll.htm

Interesting tidbit, the person who requested the popular landform picture actually didn't realize that she was requesting a picture of the "face", she was interested in the erosional characteristics of the feature, and it looked like an interesting target. Kind of funny, eh?

Yeah, that's what they told you! Wasn't a "Miss R. H. Oagland" was it..?

Interesting, the "Face" is even more boring as viewed at full resolution... it is almost impossible to recognize where its slopes of the hill are.

Here's a project for someone with entirely too much free time. Take the HiRise picture, create a DEM model of the mesa, overlay the HiRise picture on the DEM model, and then duplicate the resolution and conditions of the original Viking photo. I doubt it would convince any of the True Believers, but it would be an interesting exercise.