polygonal fractures tagged posts

As NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began climbing a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande,” it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each about 1.5–3 inches (4–8 centimeters) across. The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.

In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see...