It does look like a doorway until you realize how small it is.

So as a gateway into the hollow hills of Mars, it doesnt lead very far.

These are fractures that typically open up when the weight of overlying rock layers is removed by erosion.

A ‘doorway’ on Mars? How we see things in space that aren’t there

Theres another joint that forms the right side of the feature.

The whole hillside has been eroded back.

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The raw image with red lines added to show some of the joints. Image:

Only a few of these strange objects are real, and those are all junk that humans put there.

The others lose their visual distinctiveness if seen at closer range or from a different perspective.

Weirdness beyond Mars

Seeing the familiar even when it isnt there is a phenomenon calledpareidolia.

Black and white detail of the ‘door’ with red lines added to show joints.

The raw image with red lines added to show some of the joints. Image:

The latter, for example, is whats causing Jupiter to look angry in the image below.

Seemingly mysterious objects dont occur solely on Mars.

One of the most famous, and largest, examples of pareidolia is the Horsehead Nebula.

Image of a long stone among several others looks superficially like a thigh bone.

A bunch of stones scoured out by the wind on Mars. One in the middle looks like a thigh-bone from this angle. Image:

This is a vast cosmic cloud of gas and dust, within which whole stellar systems are forming.

It beats me why people persist in making such claims for flukey rock formations on Mars.

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Image of wreckage, deliberately crashed on Mars, seen from above.

A genuine alien artefact on Mars: the backshell of the Perseverance lander, jettisoned prior to landing. Image:

Image of a part of Jupiter, where the clouds look like an angry face.

Jupiter looking angry, imaged by Nasa’s JunoCam on May 19, 2017. Image:

Distant view by the Chang’e 4 rover showing the ‘hut’ like rock 80 m away, plus a close up view when it got there.

Distant view by the Chang’e 4 rover showing the hut-like rock 80m away, plus a close up view when it got there. Image:

Image of a dark nebula in the shape of a horse’s head

The Horsehead nebula in Orion, imaged in the visible part of the spectrum. Image: ESO

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