www.cleveland.com
NEW IMAGE DETAILS FACE ON MARS
PASADENA, Calif. - A new high-resolution portrait of the so-called "Face on 
Mars," released yesterday by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reveals the 
enigmatic feature in 10 times greater detail than previously available, 
showing the eroding features of what appearsto be a natural geologic 
formation. Even so, it is unlikely to settle completely a 20-year controversy 
over whether the formation is a fluke of weathering, as most planetary 
scientists believe, or the work of an ancient alien civilization, as some 
imagine.
The more detailed image of the Cydonia region of Mars, where the surface 
feature was first photographed by the Viking space probe in July 1976, was 
taken over the weekend by the Mars Global Surveyor as it prepares to 
systematically map the planet. In the years since the indistinct Viking 
images first captured the public imagination, a veritable cottage industry 
has sprung up around the milelong feature. Several books and scholarly 
articles speculated that it might be evidence of ancient Martian 
civilization, even as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
steadfastly maintained it was nothing more than a trick of the light.
The image, often dramatically enhanced to heighten its resemblance to a face, 
became a staple of supermarket tabloid covers. Aware of intense interest in 
the site, JPL took unusual measures to make it clear that the space agency 
did not alter the data that went into the computer generated image, by 
posting the raw data on the Internet as soon as it was received, officials 
said. The Internet address of the Mars site is:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/
"There've been charges of conspiracy and manipulating the data and we want to 
make it very clear to everybody that no such activity goes on here," said 
G.E. Cunningham, Global Surveyor project manager. Several planetary 
scientists and project engineers said yesterday that for them, the new image 
contained no surprises and no evidence of artificial origin. "It looks to me 
like a hill that's been weathered," said Michael Ravine, advanced projects 
manager at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which built the Surveyor 
camera and processes the images. The Global Surveyor probe is scheduled to 
photograph the same area again on April 14 and April 23.
---ROBERT LEE HOTZ; LOS ANGELES TIMES
ASSOCIATED PRESS NOTE
An image of the Cydonia region on Mars is shown in the photo from a NASA web 
site yesterday. The dark rectangle with a blotchy white patch may or may not 
be the'Mars Face'seen from the '70's Viking mission.
---
---------------