Humanoid Shape Spotted on Mercury

You've all heard of the "face on Mars" and the "man in the Moon" -- well I guess this would be the "man on Mercury!" And I feel like I've seen him somewhere before...

[caption id="attachment_104779" align="alignright" width="172"]

"Oh, they've encased him in carbonite. He should be quite well protected."[/caption]

In yet another instance of the phenomenon known as

pareidolia

, it's hard

not

to see the vaguely human shape in this image of Mercury's surface, acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft in July 2011. But what looks like a person with upraised arms (resembling, the team suggests, a certain

carbonite-encased space smuggler

) is really an ancient block of surface crust that juts from the floor of Mercury's vast Caloris basin -- likely the remnants of harder material predating the basin-forming impact 3.9 billion years ago. The low angle of sunlight from the west helps to highlight the surface shapes.

The image above shows an area 96 km (59.7 mi.) across.

If Jabba

really

wanted to keep his favorite wall decoration safe, perhaps he should have put it on Mercury...