NASA employees shared a snapshot overlooking the Martian canyon, the outlines of which resemble the legendary Chinese dragon.
The picture was taken by the HiRise camera installed on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007, but the mission staff "saw" the dragon just now and shared the photo from the desired angle on social networks.
HiPOD 11 Apr 2020: Year of the Dragon
We rotated this image of light-toned blocky material in southwestern Melas Chasma because from this perspective, it resembles a fabled Chinese dragon.
NASA / JPL / UArizonahttps://t.co/6wGlHKmrN5 #Mars #science
- HiRISE: Beautiful Mars (NASA) (@HiRISE) April 11, 2020
The Melas Chasma Canyon, pictured here, is an unusual area considered the deepest point in the Mariner Valley, a giant canyon system that spans a quarter of the planet's equator.
It is believed that billions of years ago there was an ancient lake on the site of the canyon, and deposits on the surface of the canyon were formed after the destruction of the reservoir. According to another version, the deposits of Melas Chasma appeared as a result of exposure to wind or volcanic ash.
Melas Chasma also contains a rare rock deposit that appears as light blocks against a dark matrix. The blocks vary in size, but most are between 100 and 500 meters wide, according to a blog post from the University of Arizona.
The canyon was one of eight potential landing sites for the Perseverance rover, due to begin its journey to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020.
This is not the first unusual image NASA has found on the Martian surface. In 2018, a camera on an orbiting satellite captured a picture of a crater reminiscent of the character in the Pac-Man game franchise.
And last year, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found a dune shaped like the Starfleet Command emblem from the Star Trek movie franchise.
