NASA's Mars orbiter captures 'bear face' in rocky formation

From the surface of a distant world, a hillside on Mars has offered humanity a familiar face — that of a bear — captured by NASA's HiRISE camera on December 12, 2022. The formation, shaped by ancient volcanic or mud activity over buried craters, is a reminder that the human mind seeks recognition even across the void of space. Yet the whimsy conceals deeper significance: nearby, a meteorite impact has exposed subsurface ice closer to Mars's equator than ever before documented, quietly rewriting what we know about the planet's hidden resources and our own potential future there.