An image captured by the probe ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiterfrom ESA, the European Space Agency in Portuguese, revealed formations on the surface of the red planet, Mars, that look a lot like a group of spiders.
These structures were located in a region at the South Pole of the planet, called “Inca City”, discovered in 1972 and owes its name to linear mountain ranges. Due to the change in the Martian seasons, from winter to spring, the formations exhale carbon dioxide released from the ice and form channels 45 meters to one kilometer in diameter.
The case is a classic example of pareidolia, an event when our minds trick us and make us see things that don’t exist. This happens by quickly detecting familiar patterns, such as “Martian spiders,” even though they are eruptions of carbon dioxide.
“These small cracks form when spring sunlight falls on the carbon dioxide blanket deposited during the dark winter months,” ESA explained.
The gas, loaded with dark dust, is released in high columns through cracks in the ice, forming geysers and depositing on the surface, which creates the dark spots seen in the images. These processes form patterns under the ice that, seen from above, resemble spiders.
“Sunlight turns the carbon dioxide ice at the base of this cover into gas, which causes it to accumulate and rupture the upper ice sheets. The gas is released in the Martian spring, dragging dark-colored matter to the surface. surface and breaking ice layers up to one meter thick”, says the Agency.
Mars has already been the scene of several pareidolia, such as the famous “bear face”, an “alien door” captured by the Curiosity rover and a cat-shaped rock recorded by the robot Perseverance. On the Moon, the rover Chinese Yutu 2 found a “mysterious hut” that was actually just a peculiarly shaped rock.
