![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/honeycomb-on-Mars-Curiosity-rover-NASA.jpg\")
Honeycomb pattern on Mars \u2013 Curiosity rover \/ NASA<\/p>\n Honeycomb pattern on Mars \u2013 Curiosity rover \/ NASA<\/p>\n
As NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover ascended the Martian valley named Valle Grande back in June, it sent back images of a landscape covered in honeycomb-like textures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity\u2019s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,\u201d said the mission\u2019s project scientist<\/a>, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.<\/p>\n Called polygonal fractures, small patches of these geometric shapes have been spotted several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.<\/p>\n In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19-20, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see. They even wrap around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed \u201cMiraflores,\u201d which stands 20 feet tall (6 meters) and is topped with a thick cap of sand.<\/p>\n \u201cWe measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.\u201d<\/p>\n A variety of processes can contribute to these honeycomb textures. Some of the polygons the rover has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks. Other possibilities include cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.<\/p>\n These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars fourteen years ago, in 2012. Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment \u2014 most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.<\/p>\n MORE MARS NEWS: Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.<\/p>\n The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars\u2019 watery history\u2014a discovery that reconfirmed ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.<\/p>\n Mars discoveries also included carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information.<\/p>\n SHARE YOUR SPECULATION By Posting the News On Social Media\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honeycomb pattern on Mars \u2013 Curiosity rover \/ NASA As NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover ascended the Martian valley named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,10753,1845,307,66,306],"class_list":["post-841594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-geology","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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