![\"CuriOSity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Curiosity-Sol-4859-1280x1141.jpg\")
This image was taken by Mast Camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS <\/p>\n
Curiosity used its two-camera Mastcam instrument to capture the above image of the Martian terrain, revealing the planet\u2019s ancient rocks donning a strange, fish-scale-like appearance.<\/p>\n
Tipping the scales <\/p>\n
The peculiar, honey-comb pattern drew the attention of NASA scientists for its sheer quantity, stretching across the planet\u2019s dusty surface for as far as Curiosity could see. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen polygon-patterned rocks like these before, but they didn\u2019t seem quite this dramatically abundant, stretching across the ground for meters and meters in our Mastcam mosaics,\u201d Fraeman noted.<\/p>\n
The team behind the Curiosity mission is still trying to figure out how the pattern formed on Mars\u2019 rocks. \u201cThis week we continued to collect lots of images and chemical data that will help us distinguish between different hypotheses for how the honeycomb textures formed,\u201d Fraeman wrote.<\/p>\n
On Earth, polygonal patterns form on the surface through the repeated expansion and contraction of ground material, which is mainly driven by cycles of freezing and thawing in cold or arid environments. Mars may be a dry, desert-like world today, but scientists believe the planet once possessed a thick atmosphere and liquid water on its surface in the form of lakes and rivers, and possibly even an ocean.<\/p>\n
The polygonal pattern of these rocks therefore may be an indication of Mars\u2019 ancient waters and a clue to the planet\u2019s earlier history.<\/p>\n
Rover explorer <\/p>\n
Before reaching the Antofagasta crater, Curiosity was treading across a region filled with delicate zigzag ridges in Mount Sharp<\/a>. The spiderweb-like features, known as boxwork formations, likely came to be when groundwater deposited minerals in cracks that later hardened, suggesting water flowed in this part of Mars later than scientists expected.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the rover moved onto the small crater that was named after a region and major city in Chile next to the Atacama. NASA scientists believe Antofagasta is a relatively young crater, which formed less than 50 million years ago. Therefore, there may be material in or around the crater that was exposed to the harsh radiation environment on Mars more recently.<\/p>\n