One of the more famous myths of the space age, the so-called "Face on Mars", has finally been debunked after new photos clearly showed that it is just a heavily eroded hill.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003, managed to get a clear look at the hill after being frustrated by dust and haze on earlier passes.

Sadly, the photos show that the kilometre-wide Face and other supposedly artificial structures in Mars' Cydonia region are just quirks of geology.