New Images From ESA Probes Reveal Curious “Mars Spiders”
New images captured by two European Space Agency (ESA) probes, the Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter, have unveiled intriguing formations on Mars in exceptional detail. These formations, clustered around the planet’s south pole, are known as “Mars spiders” due to their distinct arachnid-like shape.
Scientifically referred to as “araneiformes”, which translates to “spider-shaped” in Latin, these formations are formed when spring sunlight hits layers of frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) on the Martian surface. The sunlight causes the CO2 ice at the base of the solid layer to transform into gas, which then accumulates and ejects upward through the overlapping ice sheets.
The jets of gas, mixed with dark dust, disrupt layers of ice up to a meter thick before settling back on the surface. This process results in dark spider-shaped spots ranging from 45 meters to 1 kilometer wide, visible in images captured by the space probes.
The discovery of these fascinating formations sheds light on the unique geological processes taking place on the Red Planet. For more information and detailed images, visit the European Space Agency website.