Teddy bears may not be indigenous to planet Earth it seems, as a passing satellite has discovered the beaming face of a cute-looking teddy bear that appears to have been carved into the surface of our nearest planetary neighbor Mars by bear-loving aliens. So, Yogi, Paddington and Winnie the Pooh move over. There's a new bear in town.

When the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over Mars last month, carrying aboard the most powerful camera ever to venture into the Solar System, that's precisely what happened.

Scientists operating the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), which has been circling Mars since 2006, crunched the data that made it back to Earth and have now published a picture of the face.

"There's a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head)," said scientists at the University of Arizona, which operates the kit.

Each of the features in the 2,000-meter (6561-foot) broad face has a possible explanation that hints at just how active the surface of the planet is.

"The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater," the scientists said.

"Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent, and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?"

HiRISE, one of six instruments aboard the Orbiter, snaps super-detailed pictures of the Red Planet, helping to map the surface for possible future missions, either by humans or robots.

Over the last 10 years, the team has captured images of avalanches as they happened and discovered dark flows that could be some liquid.

They've also found dust devils twirling across the Martian surface and a feature that some people thought looked a lot like Star Trek's Starfleet logo.

One thing they have not found, however, is the little green men who were once popularly believed to inhabit the planet.