{"id":718170,"date":"2026-07-30T00:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718170\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:28:11","slug":"a-nasa-rover-just-discovered-something-strange-on-mars-and-scientists-cant-explain-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718170\/","title":{"rendered":"A NASA rover just discovered something strange on Mars – and scientists can\u2019t explain it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover<\/a> just made a strange discovery. <\/p>\n

The vehicle<\/a> stumbled upon honeycomb-like patterns of polygons on the surface of the Martian<\/a> valley known as \u201cValle Grande\u201d last month.<\/p>\n

While this isn\u2019t the first time the mission has seen the polygonal shapes, scientists have never seen so many of the features in one place before.<\/p>\n

They also still don\u2019t know how they formed – though they hope to determine the cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity\u2019s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,\u201d Curiosity mission project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of the agency\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/a> in Southern California<\/a>, said in a statement<\/a>. \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

\"NASA\u2019sNASA\u2019s Curiosity rover made a curious discovery on the Martian surface in June (NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS)\"TheThe Martian terrain is covered in mysterious polygons in this panoramic image from the rover (NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS)<\/p>\n

The polygons are between 1.3-3 inches in diameter and wrap around the sides of a nearby hill nicknamed \u201cMiraflores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the polygons spotted in the past were clearly formed as cracks in ancient mud. <\/p>\n

Researchers previously said these were signals of the Red Planet\u2019s past seasonal cycles – and potential signs for how life began there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first tangible evidence we\u2019ve seen that the ancient climate of Mars had such regular, Earth-like wet-dry cycles,\u201d William Rapin, of France\u2019s Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Plan\u00e9tologie, said in a statement<\/a> in 2023. \u201cBut even more important is that wet-dry cycles are helpful \u2013 maybe even required \u2013 for the molecular evolution that could lead to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheseThese previous shots from Curiosity also show hexagonal patterns that were formed as cracks in ancient mud (NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS\/IRAP)\"TheThe polygons surround this 20-foot-tall Martian butte known as \u2018Miraflores\u2019 (NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS)<\/p>\n

That said, a variety of processes can contribute to honeycomb textures, according to the laboratory. Another potential explanation is that water was squeezed out of the sediment when the surface was buried. <\/p>\n

This is not the first discovery from Curiosity that\u2019s surprised project mission researchers. <\/p>\n

Curiosity has found evidence that ancient Mars was able to support microbial life, but it\u2019s also found sulfur crystals and shiny meteorites.<\/p>\n

The rover landed on Mars in August 2012. Since 2014, it\u2019s been climbing the three-mile-tall Mount Sharp, which was covered with lakes and streams billions of years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-718170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}