Mars says, "Have a Nice Day!"

1. Jerse
   February 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am

   I smell a photoshop

2. Edward
   February 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am

   Art, George and Richard are looking at each other and nodding knowingly.

3. adamfuhrer
   February 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 am

   Nope, I think it is real!

4. FABIO
   February 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm

   HOW COME INSTANTLY EVERYONE ASSUMES IT'S PHOTOSHOPED? COME ON...

5. joo
   February 2nd, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   OMG
   IT'S A PICTURE
   SO IT MUST BE PHOTOSHOPPED
   OMG

6. Sr siete
   February 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm

   Well, actually, it's surely photoshopped not because natural formations can't have recognizable shapes, but because this picture resembles powerfully a well-known panel from the comic book "Watchmen", where a conversation between two characters takes place in a crater in mars shaped like the "have a nice day" smiley.

7. Sr siete
   February 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm

   This is the one:

   http://aycu26.webshots.com/image/42825/2005636002825824114_rs.jpg

8. aerio
   February 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm

   You can't be certain a thing is a photoshop piece because there was a similar image in a comic book. There /is/ still such a thing as coincidence.

   Point out warping, or shadowing, or something concrete or just leave the 'it's photoshop!' warcry to people who actually use the beast of a program and can spot and detail the specifics.

9. Justin
   February 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   Why do people claim its a fake without taking 2 minutes to follow the links...

   http://www.msss.com/msss_images/2008/01/31/

   It's not fake nor is it the first crater smiley face to have ever been photographed. There is one taken all the way back from Viking 1.

10. Ali S.
    February 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    Hehehehehe!

11. shadowfirebird
    February 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    Forgive me, but if this was real it would be a staggeringly unlikely coincidence; not least because the scene from Watchmen that this resembles was about staggeringly unlikely coincidences.

    Since there is a Watchmen movie in production, pardon me if I am cynical. I'd love it if it was real, but...

12. shadowfirebird
    February 2nd, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    Addendum: according to Wikipedia, The Watchmen crater is Galle crater, and there is an image that actually shows the Smiley-faceness of it that predates the comic.

    So if you believe Wikipedia, there is no coincidence to be cynical about.

13. ted
    February 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm

    That's one stoned Martian.

14. artbot
    February 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    My first guess would have been PS also, but looking at the source of the image (Nasa/JPL), I'm inlined to believe it's real. It's not like it was on some random blog and bounced around the web umpteen times.

    If it's a joke by someone at Nasa/JPL, then they apparently don't desire any more public funding as this would be a PR disaster waiting to happen.

15. oakling
    February 2nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    It's not staggeringly coincidental; there have been studies done that show that humans are hardwired to see faces in pretty much anything we possibly can. If it has two dots in the upper portion that we can see as eyes, the whole darn thing is a face to us. This one happens to have a more or less semicircular squiggle we can see as a face, too. It's only surprising if we buy into the idea that this configuration of makrs has some kind of relevance.

16. bob
    February 2nd, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    maybe it is coincidences. we should not have wronged him.

17. heyAlex2000
    February 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm

    WOW! is this the second 1 because I think it was last year when a smile face was discover but it was on the moon.

18. zankster
    February 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm

    That is do cool. I agree with oakling, people see faces in just about everything and anything. I see faces everywhere I look. There's one staring back at me right now. Anyway, real or not, it has my attention!

19. pubed
    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    not as interesting as the other martian pic reveal earlier..

20. Hillary Short
    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    I can already see how the conspiracy people will use this picture to create even more mysteries around Mars.

    I mean c-mon, this face got to be artificial or something.

21. VidLord
    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    interesting!

22. Miss Cellania
    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm

    This is what you call a craterface.

23. BillIsGay
    February 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 am

    Photoshoped? Since when did Adobe Photoshop becomes a verb?

24. Evil Pundit
    February 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 am

    'Photoshop' was verbed years ago.

25. Edward Khoo
    February 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 am

    Maybe that's how all Aliens looks like?

26. aerio
    February 3rd, 2008 at 3:57 am

    People have photoshopping long before one could google and yet we still get people throwing out claims of alteration without any claims of why. Can you spot embossing? Are pixels not grouped in natural formations?

    Without a thought or reason it's just another annoying version of the 'me too!' and 'first!' posting sytle.

27. Alex
    February 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 am

    Maybe it's smiling back at the Smiley Face Galaxy:

    

28. Anna Stewart
    February 3rd, 2008 at 4:26 am

    Ummm... All the people banging on about how it can't be true because it's in Watchmen, DO YOUR RESEARCH. Alan Moore has stated several times that the fact that there IS a smiley face crater on Mars was a happy coincidence, and when he found out about it he couldn't believe his luck and wrote it into the comic.

29. MoonCake
    February 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 am

    how pleasant to see a planet smiling back! cooincidence or not, smiley faces always make me happy.

30. Annie Martel
    February 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am

    Photoshop or not... this is a cool pic!

31. sn4tchbuckl3r
    February 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am

    It's not even a crater...

    Well, I guess this confirms aliens were there when Forrest wiped his face with that guy's shirt. I knew it!

32. Johnny Cat
    February 3rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    Miss C you beat me to it! Craterface, indeed!

33. Dan
    February 4th, 2008 at 6:13 am

    Some time before Jupiter was resolved into more than a yellowish brownish blob there was a magazine printed with a picture of a gas giant on the front with a huge red storm

    shit happens

    This is cool, I'd love to know what made the mouth, I first thought maybe NAZA had used Spirit or Opportunity to make it, that'd be funny. But would probably take a while..

34. Kain
    February 5th, 2008 at 6:36 am

    Laws of probability state that any and all scenarios can and will be played out. Taking this into consideration, the Mars smiley face is not so coincidental.

35. lamentable
    April 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    In the comic, this crater is located in "Argyre planitia" (Dr. Manhattan says that few pages ago).

36. Lee_2008
    June 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am

    Some kind of joke
    But really nice joke )

37. cm
    November 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    thats hot, but i think enrique is hotter

38. cm
    November 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

    its pretty cool how things can happen like that but more amazing things have happened.

39. solartrash
    February 27th, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    Clearly photoshopped, nice idea, I applaud.

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