NASA's Curiosity rover has begun climbing a Martian valley nicknamed 'Valle Grande,' where it identified an extensive field of honeycomb-like textures known as polygonal fractures. While the mission has previously spotted small patches of these fractures, they have not been seen at this scale before. The polygonal shapes spread in all directions as far as the rover can see.
The fractures wrap around the sides of a 20-foot (6-meter) tall butte nicknamed 'Miraflores,' which features a thick cap of sand. Some of the polygons are believed to have formed as mud cracks.
Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the team measured the shapes and chemistry of the area carefully. He stated that while the mission has seen many landscapes, the sea of polygons was breath-taking.
The rover captured a 360-degree panorama on June 19 and 20, which were the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days (sols) of the mission.
Curiosity has been ascending the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp since 2014. The rover has previously identified sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA.
While the rover's findings indicate that ancient Mars had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life, scientists have no way of knowing if the discovered organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes. Billions of years ago, lakes and streams existed in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp.
Curiosity landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012. The mission is led by JPL on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate and is managed by Caltech in Pasadena.
