Sure. There are face-like features on many planets and moons. But there are so few of them that they can easily be explained as shadows and erosion features without getting weirded-out on other more sensational explanations.
The above illustration shows the famous face picture provided by the Viking Orbiter back in 1976 (upper right), and the more recent Mars Global Surveyor photo returned in the late 1990s. Obviously what looked like a human face, has now dissolved into the mesa structure that astronomers and geologists have long suspected it to be. Many people made millions of dollars on hyping-up the Viking 'discovery' and this picture became a mainstay of many fringe discussions of space aliens and the like. Not a single respectable astronomer made so much as a dime from this hoopla, except perhaps in being invited by various groups to give public talks about why the whole idea was silly.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
Return to Ask the Astronomer.