the rover Curiosity of the POT discovered on Mars an extensive field of small polygonal structures that cover the ground with a similar texture like a honeycomb. The shapes They extend in all directions throughout the landscape that the vehicle can observe and even surround a nearby six-meter-high hill known as Miraflores.
The discovery is in Big Valleya Martian valley through which Curiosity has begun to ascend during its exploration of Mt. sharp. The rover photographed the terrain on days June 19 and 20during the 4,930th and 4,931st sols of its mission, in a 360-degree panoramic view. Each of these ‘polygonal fractures’ measures between four and eight centimeters in diameter.
Curiosity had already found small concentrations of similar structures at other points on Mars. What is new in this case is not their shape, but the surface they occupy. NASA claims that it had never observed a field of polygons of this magnitude during the almost 14 years it has been exploring the planet..
‘We’ve seen many fascinating landscapes through the eyes of Curiosity, but this sea of polygons left us breathless‘, he explained Ashwin Vasavadascientist responsible for the project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from NASA. ‘We have carefully measured their shapes and their chemical composition and We are confident that the data contains clues about how these structures formed‘.
Some of the previously located polygons were mud cracks produced when wet ground dried and shrank. However, the honeycomb texture can also appear due to other processes. Among the possibilities that scientists are studying are the repeated cycles of heating and cooling or the compression of buried sediments, which would have expelled the water accumulated inside.
Analysis of the geometry and chemical composition will allow comparison of this field with other formations observed by Curiosity. The results could help reconstruct the environmental conditions under which the land was fractured and clarify the role that water played in that area of Mount Sharp.
The region preserves materials formed when lakes and water currents ran through the lower areas of the mountain billions of years ago. Curiosity has found carbon-based molecules there and other indications that ancient Mars had water, nutrients and chemistry capable of supporting microbial life.although this evidence does not prove that it came to exist.