NASA scientists have discovered what might form some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, winding channels carved into the Martian surface that scientists have dubbed “spiders,” “lace” and “lizard skin.”
The unusual landscape features form in an area of Mars’ south pole called cryptic terrain because it once defied explanation.
But new observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, presented here today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, bolster theories that the intricate patterns may be sculpted by springtime outbursts of carbon dioxide gas from underneath the frozen-carbon dioxide polar ice cap.