Signs of spiders from Mars | ESA
Signs of spiders from Mars | ESA
www.esa.int Signs of spiders from Mars
No sign of Ziggy Stardust – but ESA’s Mars Express has snapped the telltale traces of ‘spiders’ scattered across the southern polar region of Mars.
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Rather than being actual spiders, these small, dark features form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months. 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. The gas bursts free in martian springtime, dragging dark material up to the surface as it goes and shattering layers of ice up to a metre thick.
Oh, so we're just missing Ziggy now.