When NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began ascending a Martian valley nicknamed “Big Valley,” it sent back images that were familiar to scientists on the mission: honeycomb textures called polygonal fractures, each about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) wide. The mission has detected small specks of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing on the scale discovered in Valle Grande.

In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days or sols of the mission, polygonal shapes stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see. They even surround the sides of a nearby hill nicknamed “Miraflores,” which is 20 feet (6 meters) high and covered in a thick layer of sand.

“We’ve seen many fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of ​​polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We carefully measured their shapes and chemistry and are hopeful that there are clues in the data about how these features formed.”

Some of the polygons the mission has detected in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, although a variety of processes may contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water from the sediment when the surface was buried.

These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has found since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on August 5, 2012. In addition to sulfur crystals, bright meteorites, and other interesting geological features, the rover has made important discoveries about the ancient Martian environment; most importantly, it had the water, chemistry and nutrients to support microbial life.

Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dotted the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 5-kilometer-high mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The rover has previously discovered chemical remains from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules thought to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created through biological or geological processes (either path is possible), but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built Curiosity and is leading the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

News Media Contacts

andres good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox/Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 202-672-4780
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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