NASA finds strange designs on Mars that hint at what happened 3.8 million years ago

Mars continues to amaze scientists, especially since the rovers landed and have been making back-to-back stupendous discoveries. Recently, the Mars Curiosity Rover discovered what is being described as "a patchwork of honeycombs, or maybe a patch of waffles". These are nothing but hexagonal shapes discovered inside the Gale Crater.

These structures appear like fractures on the surface, and scientists think they can tell how life must have started on Mars. Curiosity is now analysing their composition, and the data will be used to understand how they were formed.

Dr Catherine O'Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick, wrote in a blog post for NASA that such structures have been spotted earlier as well on the red planet, however, these are extremely well-preserved.

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The honeycomb and waffle-like shapes are believed to have formed around 3.6 to 3.8 million years ago. They look similar to what we find on Earth when a lakebed dries up and other drought-hit areas. A similar phenomenon seems to have been at work on Mars as well, with wet and dry cycles believed to have created the cracks.

How did these cracks form on Mars?

Weighing their origin, Dr O'Connell-Cooper wrote, "The origin of these cracks is not clear - could they have formed as desiccation cracks as Mars began to get drier, billions of years ago? Or during later periods when groundwater moved through the bedrock?"

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Answers to the puzzle will take time to be revealed. For now, Curiosity has started studying them using a technique called "Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy." NASA scientists will dig into the chemicals hiding in the structure by firing a laser pulse at the surface that will create a small burst of plasma, emitting light.

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The nearby region will also be studied for comparison.

Honeycombs have been found on Mars before

The last time similar polygon shapes were spotted on Mars was in 2021 on the slopes of Mount Sharp, a 5 km tall peak in the Gale Crater. Those were initially also believed to have been caused by a dried-up lakebed. However, analysis showed the presence of sulphates above the cracks in a region which once likely had an ancient lake.

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The newer cracks had sulphates, promoting the idea that the lake supposedly dried up many times. This meant that the lake seasonally swelled and dried. On Earth, this process is believed to have given birth to the first organic compounds. You can find them in Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica.

In 2023, the Chinese Zhurong rover detected 15 massive honeycomb structures dozens of metres under the Martian surface.