NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered a vast field of honeycomb-like textures known as polygonal fractures while climbing up a Martian valley nicknamed Valle Grande. Each individual polygonal feature measures approximately 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. While the mission has previously spotted small patches of these geometric shapes, mission scientists stated they have never encountered them at this scale on Mars before.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers Massive Field of Honeycomb Textures on Mars
The discovery was documented in a 360-degree panorama captured on June 19 and 20, marking the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission. According to the data, the polygonal shapes extend in all directions for as far as the rover can see, and they wrap around the sides of a nearby 20-foot (6-meter) tall butte nicknamed Miraflores, which features a thick cap of sand.
We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,
said Ashwin Vasavada, the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.
Investigating the Origins of Martian Polygonal Fractures
Planetary scientists note that while some polygons spotted by the mission in the past formed clearly as mud cracks, they are not yet certain what caused the newly discovered honeycomb textures in Valle Grande. A variety of geological processes could be responsible for producing the patterns. These potential causes include cycles of warm and cold temperatures on the Red Planet, or compression that squeezed water out of Martian sediment when the surface was buried.
The mission team is actively analyzing the gathered information. This week we continued to collect lots of images and chemical data that will help us distinguish between different hypotheses for how the honeycomb textures formed,
wrote Abigail Fraeman, deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a blog post detailed by Gizmodo.
Context of the Curiosity Mission and Ancient Water on Mars
The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on August 5, 2012, and has spent 14 years exploring the planet. Throughout its expedition, the six-wheeled robot has traversed sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other geological features while ascending Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain it has been climbing since 2014.
Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp. Discoveries made by the rover have revealed that the ancient Martian environment possessed the water, chemistry, and nutrients necessary to support microbial life. Among these findings are carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. While scientists cannot definitively confirm whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes, their presence reinforces that ancient Mars maintained the chemical conditions required to support life.
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