First, there was a man on the moon. And now there's a face on a comet - or at least that is what it appears to be.
That's what a photo taken in deep space from Europe's Rosetta spacecraft shows, according to Space.com.
Rosetta captured the photo of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, or Comet 67P/C-G for short, on Sunday while enroute to today's arrival. The image shows the 2.5-mile-wide comet with the face illusion on the right side, Space.com stated.
Officials with the German Aerospace Center's youth portal, DLR_next, spotted the optical illusion and posted it on Twitter today. DLR is one of the European Space Agency members participating in the Rosetta comet-chasing mission, according to Space.com.
But seeing faces in space photos is nothing new. They are examples of pareidolia, which is when the human brain perceives faces, animals or other shape pattern in random images.
And NASA's Viking 1 Mars orbiter took a picture in 1976 that sparked claims of a "Face on Mars," but observations by other spacecraft like NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Europe's Mars Express have since proved the Face on Mars was just an effect caused by light and shadows.
Other examples of false space sightings include a rat on Mars, an alien Bio Base and most recently a strange flash of light that was captured by NASA's Curiosity rover, Space.com reported.
Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/C-G after a 10-year and 4-billion-mile chase across the solar system. Space.com says the probe has already begun snapping close-up pictures of the comet.
Rosetta, the first spacecraft to ever orbit a comet, will study the comet in extraordinary detail for the next year and a half. Rosetta is expected to drop its lander Philae on the comet's surface in November for an even closer look.
