The Mars Express probe has been orbiting Mars since 2003 and has made many interesting discoveries during that time. For example, it helped to find a large salt lake (or layer of sludge) deep under the surface of Mars, and last year it even made the first pm transmission from another planet.
Now pipsal has made an interesting discovery on his account, including a photo. A strikingly structured area can be seen on it, which is surrounded by what looks like a web of spiders. The European Space Agency (ESA), which sent the probe together with the Russian Roskosmos and operates it, described the photo as Mars Express noticed traces of spiders in the Martian city of Ink.
The constellation captures another polar region of Mars, and was captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on November 27, 2024, when the Mars Express probe imaged the planet during its orbit with a magnitude of 25,449. The first dark spots in the image are light spider webs scattered across the region. Given that the resolution of the image is 15 meters per display point (pixel), such spiders would have to be really gigantic with the size of plates and hundreds of meters.
An image of the surface of Mars shows an expanse of linear, mossy ridges and walls known as Inca City, and scattered with dark spots that indicate the presence of spider-like elements.
However, the truth about how these spiders are created is much more prosaic. When carbon dioxide gas is heated in sunlight, it can break through the surface of the upper dry ice in some places, even if you want solid carbon dioxide, which is sometimes referred to as Maransk geysers. This creates branched ridges in the ice, and because this gas mixes with dark dust, which penetrates the surface together with it, those dark spots are formed. As a rule, they arise when spring arrives in the Martian hemisphere and the sun again covers the frozen layer, heat is accumulated at the bottom of the layers.
It’s not the first time scientists have observed this mess and called it spiders. Two of them were captured, for example, by another European probe, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). Her collections showed these patterns in different ways.
The entire surface of Mars is covered by the Trace Gas Orbiter probe, which is part of the ExoMars mission. On the right of the photo, there are eroded trunk craters and dark spots with pons that look like spiders.
On the other hand, images from the Mars Express probe show dark spots on the surface, while TGO captures spider-like channels that are carved into the dry ice below the surface.
Ruins of revenge on Mars?
While in the case of spiders, scientists are sure of their cause, while the regular shapes of the Martian city of Ink have not yet been clearly explained, but they are clear about the name.
The reason for this name is not a mystery, linear, dark geometric with heben piping reminiscent of the Inca ruins. The city of Ink, formerly known as Angustus Labyrinthus, was discovered in 1972 by NASA’s Mariner 9 probe, ESA experts explain.
According to experts from ESA, the city is located inside a large crater, which was created by the impact of rock from space into the surface of the planet. This impact probably caused fractures to form on the surrounding plain, which were subsequently filled by rising lions and have been eroding ever since.
An image of the surface of Mars shows an expanse of linear, mossy ridges and walls known as Inca City, and scattered with dark spots that indicate the presence of spider-like elements.
However, they are not sure, so how the shapes came about is not exactly clear yet. Some scientists think that behind the emergence of this shape there should be a change of dog dunes in the trunk over a long period of time. This theory is supported by the fact that towards the center the landscape becomes rather small, large and wavy, creating an effect reminiscent of marble. It is assumed that this effect occurs when layered deposits are worn over time.
Or the ridges could be eskers, click structures related to glaciers, close pbh one of the probable variants of the creation of Inca City people from ESA.
