The Face on Mars lies in an area known as the Cydonia region, which falls between the planet’s cratered southern highlands and the smoother northern plains. When the Viking 1 mission returned the photos of the Martian surface in 1976, the image of a rocky face in the Cydonia region captured the public eye. Viking 1 mission circled the red planet in search of a landing site for its sister ship, Viking 2. It snapped the photos of Mars for engineers at NASA to study. On July 25, 1976, it captured the image of a pile of rocks that greatly resembled a human face.
Face on Mars
