When you see Mars from afar, it’s easy to assume it’s just a red stone with no feature, but once you look more closely at the surface, you can find some pretty interesting things. One of the most bizarre points of view that scientists have seen on the surface of the planet are the so-called “spiders”, which appear as dark spots surrounded by worm-like disturbances in the Martian soil. They were a total mystery to researchers, and since nothing like them appears on Earth, no one could explain how they formed. I mean so far.
A new study published in the journal Scientific reports explains how experimentation has led researchers to the ability to replicate strange spider-like features right here on Earth. As it turns out, spiders are probably a byproduct of the changing seasons on Mars. When the temperature changes, it can have a dramatic effect on the surface and what is inside it, and in this case it means CO2.
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The scientific team has begun experimenting with things that are already known to exist on Mars, including CO2. The atmosphere on Mars is largely made up of CO2, and when temperatures drop during the Martian winter, CO2 cools enough to turn to ice. Any CO2 ice on the surface eventually heats up as the seasons change and turns directly from a solid into a gas through a process known as sublimation.
When testing CO2 sublimation in a “Mars simulation chamber” that included various granular substrates, the team found that dry ice that turns into a gas actually generates a similar pattern.
“The research team made holes in the centers of the CO2 ice blocks and suspended them with a claw similar to those found in the arcades, above the granular beds of different grain sizes. They reduced the pressure inside a vacuum chamber to Martian atmospheric pressure (6 mbar) and then used a lever system to place the block of CO2 ice on the surface, “explains a press release accompanying the newspaper.
“In any case, once the block was erected, a spider model had been eroded by the leaking gas. Spider patterns were more branched when finer grain sizes were used and less branched when heavier sizes were used. This is the first set of empirical evidence for this existing surface process. ”
So, if the surface is much warmer than necessary for sublimation to occur, the leakage of gas from under the dry ice will essentially sculpt the surface material, forming spider-like shapes. But how would the surface reach this temperature if the seasonal changes are so gradual? Researchers hypothesize that sunlight can actually pass through ice and warm the earth beneath it.
Everything makes sense, but without actually seeing the process unfold on the surface, researchers cannot be 100% sure that their theories are correct.
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Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games over the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, portable devices, smartphones and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot and was featured in USA Today, Time.com and countless other internet outlets and prints. His love of reporting is second only to gambling addiction.