NASA’s Curiosity rover finds a mysterious honeycomb landscape on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has entered a Martian valley covered by an astonishing “sea” of tiny polygon-shaped fractures. The honeycomb patterns, each only a few inches wide, stretch across the landscape and even wrap around a nearby 20-foot-tall butte.

The top 3

  1. The "Face on Mars" Illusion: A mesa in the Cydonia region of Mars, which, due to specific lighting and resolution, resembled a human face in images captured by NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter in 1976.
  2. Martian "Spiders" Formations: These dark, radial channels, known as araneiform terrain, are found in Mars' south polar regions and form when spring sunshine sublimates carbon dioxide ice, causing gas to erupt and carve intricate patterns.
  3. Hematite "Blueberries": These small, spherical concretions, rich in the iron oxide hematite, were discovered by NASA's Opportunity rover and are considered strong evidence of past liquid water environments on Mars, although some theories suggest a meteoritic origin.

Sources

Open the full topic