Perched on a rock, she could be waiting for a bus.

But if so, she could be in for an awfully¹ long wait.

A photo of what looks remarkably² like a female figure with her arm outstretched was among several taken on Mars and sent back to Earth by NASA's Mars explorer Spirit, Britain's Daily Mail reported yesterday.

Though no official confirmation³ has come from NASA on whether the figure is an alien or an optical illusion caused by landscape on Mars, it has set the Internet abuzz that whether there really is life on Mars.

As one enthusiast⁴ put it on the newspaper's website: "These pictures are amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what appears to be a naked alien running around on Mars."

Another wrote: "If you show me another rock in another photo from Mars, that naturally looks like that, I will reconsider."

A third contributor, who came closer to the majority view, said: "Ah, the human eye can be tricked so easily."

The news of the mystery woman on Mars came just days after a team of French scientists claimed to have discovered proof that Mars has high dense⁵ clouds of dry ice, which scud⁶ across its orange sky, Indian newspaper Hindustan Times reported.

Using data obtained by the OMEGA spectrometer on board European Space Agency's Mars Express, the team found the existence of ice clouds which sometimes become so dense that they throw quite dark shadows on the dusty surface of the planet.

 她坐在一块岩石上，像是在等公共汽车。

不过如果真的是这样，那么她只能永无止境地等下去了。

据英国《每日邮报》昨日报道，美国宇航局“勇气号”火星探测器向地球发回了一组从火星上拍摄的照片，其中一张照片上有一个伸着手臂、酷似女人的身影。

尽管美国宇航局尚未正式确认这个“人形”是“火星人”还是由火星特殊地形引起的视错觉，但这张照片已在互联网上引起了是否真的存在“火星人”的热烈讨论。

一位天文爱好者在《每日邮报》网站上留言说：“这些照片太令人惊讶了。当我看到这张照片时，我简直不敢相信自己的眼睛——看上去就像一个外星人在火星上裸奔。”

还有一位网友评论说：“除非还能找到类似的人形照片，否则我不会相信！”

另一位网友的观点则代表了大多数人的看法：“人类的眼睛总是容易被骗。”

据《印度斯坦时报》报道，在火星“神秘女郎”消息公布几天前，法国一个科学家小组称他们发现了火星橘红色上空存在浓密干冰云的证据。

根据欧洲航天局“火星快车”探测器上装备的OMEGA光谱仪获取的数据，该科学家小组发现，由于火星上空的干冰云有时很密集，所以会在覆盖着很多尘埃的火星表面投下阴影。

Vocabulary:

alien:外星人