There are people who think they are doing a service to ‘Science’ by ‘debunking’ any indication of the extraordinary. This trait is on display with their dismissive response toward the recent publicity regarding the so-called Square on Mars.

In case you were wondering, the Square on Mars is a real feature on the surface of Mars. It was photographed by the orbiting Mars Orbiter space probe in 2001. You can find the photograph on the Arizona University Mars Orbiter Camera archive here.

The debunkers will say, “It’s been Photoshopped. It doesn’t really look like a square.” But is this true? Here’s the official photo:

A square has four sides of equal length. So let’s re-orient the images so that the adjacent sides can be compared:

A square has right angle corners. Let’s compare the corners with right angles:

Is it a perfect square? No, but that’s pretty close for a random geologic feature.

Skepticism is an important tool in scientific discovery, but discovery is even more important. And in a few more years, regardless of how skeptical or gullible we choose to be, the answer to the question raised by this image will be discovered. Maybe it would be best to keep an open mind.