What are thousands of spiders doing on Mars? Here is the answer according to science

Is Mars populated by spiders? Looking at the images coming to us from the Red Planet, it is possible to see an expanse of thousands of black spiders emerging from the buried ice. An unusual phenomenon, which repeats itself cyclically, bringing this unknown evidence to light. The latest satellite images released by ESA, the European space agency, show that the phenomenon began again this year in Inca City, in the southern polar region of Mars, around a rocky and sandy formation renamed for its similarity to those of the ancient pre-Columbian civilizations. But as suggestive as they may be, there is no longer any doubt about what they are.

In the photographs taken by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter it is possible to see several piles of spiderlings, dark and slender formations with small legs. But arachnophobes need not fear: Martian “spiders” are actually seasonal eruptions of carbon dioxide on the Red Planet. Having this shape are actually gas channels measuring from 45 meters to 1 kilometer in diameter. They originate when the climate begins to warm in the Southern Hemisphere, during the Martian spring, melting layers of carbon dioxide ice. The heat causes the lower layers of ice to turn into gas or sublimate. And as the gas expands, it rises and explodes from the ice layers above, bringing with it dark dust that escapes from the ice creating the spiderweb pattern.

“No sign of Ziggy Stardust, but ESA’s Mars Express has captured the telltale tracks of ‘spiders’ scattered across Mars’ south polar region,” the space agency says. “Rather than being actual spiders, these small dark features form when the spring sun falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the dark winter months. Sunlight causes the carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently accumulates and breaks up the ice sheets above. The gas is released in the Martian spring, dragging dark material to the surface and shattering layers of ice up to a meter thick.”

Another of ESA’s Mars explorers, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, “taken tendril-shaped images of the spiders particularly clearly. The spiders captured by Tgo are close to, but outside, the region shown in this new image from Mars Express. The Mars Express view shows dark patches on the surface formed by escaping gas and material, while the other view also captures spider-web-like channels carved into the ice below.”

Spiders are visible throughout the outskirts of Inca City. But the reason for this name is no mystery: the linear, almost geometric network of the ridges recalls the Inca ruins. More formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, Inca City was discovered in 1972 by NASA’s Mariner 9 probe: initially it was hypothesized that they could be petrified sand dunes or perhaps the remains of ancient Martian glaciers. But in 2002 the Mars Orbiter revealed that Inca City is part of an 86-kilometre-wide circular structure, the remnant of an ancient impact crater, suggesting that the geometric ridges could be intrusions of magma that have risen through the Martian crust. when it was hit by an unidentified space rock.

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