(dr) ESA
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A ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiterfrom the European Space Agency (ESA), detected what astronomers called the “spider signal from Mars”.
The images, from the south polar region of the Red Planet, show what appear to be giant spiders on the planet’s surface. They are not animals, but are features created in the ice as the Martian winter turns to spring.
“These small, dark features form when Spring sunlight falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the dark winter months”, explained the European Space Agency (ESA), in a statement.
“Sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently accumulates and breaks apart the overlying ice sheets. The gas releases in the Martian spring, dragging dark material to the surface as it advances and breaks apart the ice sheets, which can be up to a meter thick.”
As the gas emerges, pushing dust and sand upward, it creates giant fountains that then fall back toward the planet. This phenomenon causes the dark spots seen in the image to appear, which extend between 45 meters and 1 kilometer in diameter.
But why do we see “spiders”? The answer is in pareidoliaa cognitive phenomenon rooted in human perception.
In evolutionary terms, the survival of our ancestors depended on rapid threat identification. This tendency to discern recognizable patterns, even in random stimuli, was a guarantee of survival.
This is why the inclination to perceive familiar shapes in unfamiliar contexts persists as a vestige of our evolutionary past.
Jess Taubertfrom the University of Queensland, corroborated this evidence by IFL Science, adding that this characteristic predisposes humans to misinterpret random stimulilike the “spider” patterns on Mars.
