There are spiders from Mars—if you believe these photos.
Incredible images taken by the European Space Agency’s spacecraft, the Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), shows distinctive arachnid shapes.
This creates dark spots of between 45 meters and 1 km across.
“This same process creates characteristic ‘spider-shaped’ patterns etched beneath the ice—and so these dark spots are a telltale sign that spiders may be lurking below,” teased the agency in a media release.
LOOK: A Formation That Looks Like a Giant Grizzly Bear Spotted on Mars by NASA Camera Another ESA Mars explorer, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), has imaged the spiders’ tendril-like patterns especially clearly.
The spiders captured by TGO lie near, but outside, the region shown in the new Mars Express image.
Mars Express has revealed a great deal about Mars in the last two decades and counting, like when it peered into the depths of Mars’ own grand canyon to find that water made up as much as 40% of the ground there.
CHECK OUT: Listen to the First Eerie Sounds From Mars: China’s Rover Films Itself Driving on Red Planet, Making History
This would make David Bowie proud! These pictures seem to confirm that there are Martian spiders.
Arachnid shapes can be seen in amazing photos captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft.
In reality, the seemingly eerie features are tiny, dark formations created when springtime sunlight strikes carbon dioxide layers that have been deposited over the gloomy winter months on the Red Planet.
A section of southern polar Mars known as Inca City, so named for its almost geometric, linear network of ridges resembling Inca ruins, is where the phenomenon was observed.
According to the ESA, “the sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice.”. As the gas explodes in the Martian spring, it breaks through ice layers up to a meter thick and pulls dark material to the surface. “.
The darkly dusty gas that is emerging shoots up through ice fissures to form tall fountains or geysers before redescending and landing on the surface. As a result, there are dark areas that are 45 meters to 1 km across.
The agency hinted in a media release that “this same process creates characteristic’spider-shaped’ patterns etched beneath the ice—and so these dark spots are a telltale sign that spiders may be lurking below.”.
LOOK: A NASA camera captured a formation on Mars that resembles a massive grizzly bear.
The spiders’ tendril-like patterns have been captured in particularly clear images by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), another ESA Mars explorer. The TGO-captured spiders are located outside but close to the area depicted in the most recent Mars Express picture.
The TGO perspective also captures the spidery, web-like channels carved into the ice below, while the Mars Express view displays the dark spots on the surface created by escaping gas and material.
In the past 20 years and more, Mars Express has discovered a lot of information about the planet. For example, when it looked down into the Grand Canyon on Mars, it discovered that up to 40% of the surface was made of water.
The orbiter is still photographing the surface of Mars, mapping its mineral resources, investigating the nature and circulation of its atmosphere, penetrating its crust, and researching the Martian environment.
SEE ALSO: China’s Rover Captures Itself Driving on the Red Planet, Making History, and Listens to the First Unsettling Sounds From Mars.
