No sign of Ziggy Stardust – but ESA’s Mars Express has snapped the telltale traces of ‘spiders’...
No sign of Ziggy Stardust - but ESA's Mars Express has snapped the telltale traces of 'spiders' scattered across the southern polar region of Mars.
Rather than being actual spiders, these small, dark features form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months.
Another of ESA's Mars explorers, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, has imaged the spiders' tendril-like patterns especially clearly.
The spiders captured by TGO lie near, but outside, the region shown in this new Mars Express image.
The Mars Express view shows the dark spots on the surface formed by escaping gas and material, while the TGO perspective also captures the spidery, web-like channels that are carved into the ice below.
The aforementioned dark spots can be seen all over the Mars Express image, creeping across towering hills and expansive plateaus.
Most can be seen as small spots in the dark region to the left, which sits just at the outskirts of a part of Mars nicknamed Inca City.
This new view of Inca City and its hidden arachnid residents was captured by Mars Express's High Resolution Stereo Camera.
Some signs of spiders can be seen scattered across the plateaus here, lurking amongst various canyons and troughs.
Mars Express has revealed a great deal about Mars in the last two decades and counting.