By Tim Binnall
It appears that rogue researchers aren't the only ones who can find intriguing oddities on the Mars as NASA recently shared an image of what appears to be an iconic Muppet character on the surface of the Red Planet. The weird find came courtesy of the space agency's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment which is a part of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
In a post on Twitter, the team behind the project lamented that a global dust storm had "obscured much of the surface" of the planet, but they were still able to examine areas of Mars' South Pole. And it is there that NASA stumbled upon a formation which bears an uncanny resemblance to the classic Muppets character Beaker, who you may recall was the bumbling assistant of scientist Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.
While we're sure that Hollywood could spin up some kind of storyline that led to the hapless helper's visage being imprinted on the surface of Mars, the actual cause of the character appearing there is, of course, the pareidolia phenomenon. Ironically, Beaker is not first Disney-owned character to 'appear' in space as the legendary helmet of Darth Vader was also seemingly spotted on Mars last year and Mickey Mouse himself popped up on Mercury back in 2012.