From images captured by the Mars Express probe and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, both from the European Space Agency (ESA), Scientists have found mysterious little spiders in some regions of Mars. In reality, these dark dots are seasonal eruptions of carbon dioxide (CO2) due to chemical processes occurring on the red planet.
The ‘spiders’ form when the spring sun shines on the layers of carbon dioxide that were deposited in these regions during the winter. When sunlight hits the region, the CO2 ice at the bottom will turn into gas and subsequently accumulate into ice sheets.
As spring arrives, the gas is released through ice cracks or geysers, until it falls and is deposited on the surface. WSince the gas also carries dark dust, this creates dark patches on the Martian surface, with diameters between 45 meters and 1 kilometer. These are exactly the spots on the ground that have the characteristic shape similar to small spiders..
The image photographed by ExoMars presents the ‘spiders’ in detail.Source: ESA / TGO / CaSSIS
“The emerging gas, laden with dark dust, rises through cracks in the ice in the form of tall fountains or geysers, before falling back down and settling on the surface. This same process creates characteristic “spider-shaped” patterns etched beneath the ice – and so these dark patches are a telltale sign that spiders may be lurking below,” ESA describes in an official statement.
‘Spiders’ on Mars
Most of the dark spots in the image photographed by Mars Express are close to a Martian region known as Inca City. Despite this, the formal name of the site is Angustus Labyrinthus, discovered by the Mariner 9 probe during a NASA mission; the tribute is precisely due to the geometric shape of the peaks at the site, similar to what can be seen in the Inca ruins.
The image photographed by the Mars Express probe shows the region known as Inca City; most of the spots can be seen in the darker region on the left.Source: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin
It’s not uncommon to find patterns in nature; including, This phenomenon is known as pareidolia. In other missions, the probes have already photographed regions of Mars that had characteristics similar to a human face and even a pyramid, but this is just a misinterpretation of our brain. In the end, it is just a pattern created by the planet’s natural processes.
The Inca City on Mars.Source: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin
“We still don’t know exactly how the Inca City was formed. It may be that the dunes turned to stone over time. Perhaps materials like magma or sand are seeping through fractured layers of Martian rock… The Inca City’s ‘walls’ appear to trace out part of a large circle, 86 km in diameter. Scientists therefore suspect that the ‘city’ lies in a large crater that was formed when a rock from space collided with the planet’s surface,” the ESA adds.
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