Apparently we human beings have a brain that is specialised in understanding and interpreting faces. Carl Sagan believed we are "hard-wired" from birth to identify the human face because it increases our chances of survival if we're able to discern friend from foe quickly. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces (a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia).
A very famous instance of pareidolia is the Face of Mars, and not a week passes by where somewhere around the world someone claims to have seen the face of Jesus Christ in some object or other. They see them on Google Earth images, ultrasound pictures, pieces of pizza, Sussex hawthorns, chicken feathers and IKEA toilet doors. What, you've seen the Lord's face in some shroud? Boring!Look what I saw when I opened a jar of Marmite this morning.
I'm not writing this blog post to inform you that I've seen our Saviour's face appear somewhere in the Arctic sea ice (although I probably could if I wanted to), but it is definitely funny to see facial patterns when looking closely at the MODIS satellite images. Here are some examples:
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