The "Face" on Mars

In 1976 when the spacecraft Viking1 was orbiting the planet Mars taking photographs of its surface, one photograph caught the attention of many. It showed a formation on the surface of the planet looking strikingly like a human face.

                              (Image from:Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Astronomers at NASA immediately wrote it off saying it was an illusion created by lighting, however upon further examination it was found that the actual 3 dimensional structure itself resembles a human face; i.e its not merely an illusion.

This "face" created a lot of excitement during that time and theories that include extra terrestrial intelligence or lost alien civilizations were put forward to explain it.

Although a slight air of mystery still surrounds this face of mars, It is now widely accepted that the "face" is a natural formation. It seems very rare and highly improbable but, such natural formations have occurred on earth too.  The old man of the mountain, the Badlands Guardian are two such examples.

In my opinion the face of Mars has something to do with our perception too. We see a face because we expect to see a face, and because our brains are very good at identifying faces. Many ancient cultures have seen a face, a rabbit, or something else on the moon. Our ancestors saw so many images and patterns among the stars. Our minds always look for patterns in things and succeed in finding them. It has been proven mathematically that any large collection of objects has patterns concealed in it, therefore it follows that we can identify patterns in practically anything. It is because of this that we associate a face or something else with natural formations and heavenly objects.

"It is likely that our very existence as a species owes much to this ability to delineate patterns. Evolution may have made us a little too adept at spotting them. Our propensity to see patterns where none exists at all is witnessed by ancient Man's enthusiastic identification of ploughs and hunters, crabs and scales tracing out patterns of stars we call the constellations, or by modern Man's enthusiasm for Martian Canals." 
- The World Within the World-John D. Barrow (Oxford,1990)   

Sri Lanka's loss at the CWC Final

Thousands of hopes were shattered when Sri Lanka lost the final match of the ICC Cricket world Cup for the second consecutive time. However more than the loss, it was the poor quality of cricket played, and the lack of enthusiasm shown by some of the players in the team that disturbed many viewers.

To begin with, the changes and replacements made in the playing squad just for the final match were surprising..Why make drastic changes to a team that has already performed very well? also, leaving out the bowler with the best record for the team in the tournament, and bringing in cricketers who haven't played a single match in tournament to play the final was puzzling.

Changes and replacements kept aside, the performance in the field was also of very poor standards. Dropping important catches and misfieldings were increasingly common. There was a sharp contrast between the Indian and the Sri Lankan teams in terms of fielding.. While the Indians were diving across the ground to save runs, Some of our fielders just lazily bent over while the ball went passing them.

However only some of the players lacked the enthusiasm. Some others showed great commitment and sportsmanship specially when batting. This was a match we could have won. This is why the ardent fans of Sri Lanka Cricket are upset... Anyway what's done is done and hopefully our cricketers will learn from the mistakes made this time and gear up for winning the next world cup.