Eek, spiders! All right, so it’s not actually little green arachnids we’re talking about here, but they are definitely spidery features. Called araneiform terrain, these clusters of radially-branching cracks in Mars’ south polar surface are the result of the progressing spring season, when warmer temperatures thaw subsurface CO2 ice.
As dry ice below the surface warms it can sublimate rapidly and burst through the frozen ground above, creating long cracks. If the material below is dark it can be carried upwards by the escaping gas, staining the surface.
Each dark splotch is around 100 meters wide.
This image was acquired by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on September 26, from a distance of 262 km (163.8 miles). See the full-size scan here, and check out more recent HiRISE images in the November PDS release here.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Recent Posts
SpaceX Moves Ahead With Falcon 9 Launches After FAA Go-Ahead
The Federal Aviation Administration has ruled that SpaceX can resume Falcon 9 rocket launches while…
Is This How You Get Hot Jupiters?
When we think of Jupiter-type planets, we usually picture massive cloud-covered worlds orbiting far from…
Now Uranus’ Moon Ariel Might Have an Ocean too
Venus is known for being really quite inhospitable with high surface temperatures and Mars is…
Why is JWST Having So Much Trouble with the TRAPPIST-1 System?
When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched it came with a fanfare expecting amazing…
Planetary Habitability Depends on its Star’s Magnetic Field
The extrasolar planet census recently passed a major milestone, with 5500 confirmed candidates in 4,243…
A Solution to the “Final Parsec Problem?”
Supermassive Black Holes are Nature's confounding behemoths. It's difficult for Earth-bound minds to comprehend their…