Spiders on Mars? The probe of the European Space Agency photographed strange formations

Images taken by the probe in an area called the City of the Incas near the planet’s south pole show a number of small, dark, spider-like objects. This is a phenomenon that, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), occurs when the sun’s intensifying rays warm the layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the dark Martian winter. The frozen CO2 turns into a gas in the lower layer, which accumulates under the ice and eventually breaks through it at a thickness of about one meter.

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The released gas erupts in the form of a geyser, carrying with it a large amount of dark dust from the surface of Mars. Dust from the CO2 eruption falls back onto the breached ice, creating cracked “spider” formations that can range from 45 meters to one kilometer in diameter. For your interest, you can see how big the largest volcano in the Solar System, the Martian volcano Olympus Mons, is compared to the US state of Arizona:

Inca city on Mars

The Martian City of the Incas, also known as Angustus Labyrinthus, is part of a circular formation with a diameter of 86 km, which is apparently the remnant of an impact crater after the impact of some large body. It is characterized by a linear, almost geometric network of rock ridges, reminiscent of the ruins of Inca cities in South America.

However, scientists are still not sure how the gradually eroding ridges actually came to be. “It could be that the sand dunes turned to stone over time. But perhaps some material, such as magma or sand, is moving through the broken layer of Martian rocks. But it can also be eskers, i.e. zigzag structures created by the activity of glaciers,” ESA representatives summarized the existing theories.

Mars Express is the European Space Agency’s first probe designed to monitor the surface of Mars. It arrived in the red planet’s orbit on December 25, 2003 together with the Beagle 2 lander. While the probe is still orbiting the planet and communicating with the control center, European scientists lost contact with the lander before it landed on the surface of Mars.

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Current images of the Inca City and its spider “inhabitants” were taken by the probe with its high-resolution camera on February 27, 2024, when it is autumn in this region of Mars. The nearest vernal equinox on Mars will occur on November 12, 2024.

Source: ESA, Space.com

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