Rate the following essay on its writing, argument, and language skills:
Mesa on Mars

Who or what created this "face" on Mars? Was it aliens, or just nature doing its thing? The answer has been debated ever since it was discovered and the truth has been found. Although there's proof out there like the picture that was taken ten times better than the Viking's pictures, skilled scientist themselves don't even think it could be made by aliens, and there are similar landforms on Earth some people still find ways to argue. These people might say "the markings were hidden under the haze, but just as much as that could be true it could also be wrong. This "face" was created by none other than Mother Nature herself.

To start, the pictures taken in 1998 and 2001 were much clearer than the original Viking pictures and unmask the face for what it really is. In "Unmasking the Face on Mars" it states, "...Michael Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) team snapped a picture ten time sharper than the original Viking photos." To illistrate, the article is saying that this new picture was so much better and much more revealing. The day this picture was taken (April 5, 1998) was completely cloudless. This means that there couldn't have been any alien markings hidden somewhere. Garvin said, "As a rule of thumb, you can discern things in a digital image 3 times bigger than the pixel size..." He's hinting that even small things that show us there was civilization there could've been seen in this picture. To conclude, the new picture was proof to the world that this was just a landform.

Not only did a picture tell us this was no sign of alien life on Mars, but so did skilled scientists. When the picture was first taken, "scientists figured it was just another Martian mesa, common enough around Cydonia, only this one had unusual shadows that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh." We all know that scientists know their stuff so why doubt them? Their first intsinct was that it was just another landform, so why can't we all just agree with them and get on with our lives to worry about something more important? Even the caption for the picture (when it was released for everyone to see) noted that it was just a huge rock formation. So why can't we just see this "face" for what it is?

Lastly, there are landforms on Earth just like it. They're called mesas or buttes. Garvin says that " It reminds me most of Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho. That's a lava dome that takes the form of an isolated mesa about the same height as the face of Mars." If these landforms can naturally occur on Earth can't they also occur on Mars? Garvin sees that this landform is just like something we have at our own home.

Some people might say that when the picture was taken of the "face" in 1998 that it was probably cloudy that day and some alien markings were probably just covered up by the clouds. They must have done a lot of research because normally April is a cloudy time on the Red Planet, but that day was completely clear and "sunny". These people might just be the kind who believe in the supernatural and say that they've been "obducted by aliens". There is much more proof to this face being a natural landform compared to it being a alien made landmark. Where one side would say that "scientists don't believe there is a chance of this" the other side would say it was cloudy the day that picture was taken. Overall, there is no excuse for the fact that this is naturally occuring.

All in all, this face is a natural landform that has nothing to do with extra terrestrial life on Mars. There is proof behind it like the picture taken in 1998, the fact that actual scientists don't think there's any chance of it being alien related, and there are landforms like this one on Earth called a butte or mesa. All of these things proove that not only was "the Face of Mars" just a natural forming landform. Will you know the real cause of something like "The Face of Mars" next time you see one?

Score: 5