New images from the European Space Agency (ESA) taken in the southern polar region of Mars reveal dark spots resembling a colossal swarm of spiders crawling across the surface of the red planet.
According to Newsweek on April 25, these “spiders” were captured by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express spacecraft near an area nicknamed “Inca City” in the southern hemisphere of Mars. The images are enough to send chills down the spines of anyone with arachnophobia.
Image resembling hundreds of black spiders captured by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on Mars – (Photo: ESA)
However, these are not actual spiders. They are dark spots formed on the surface of Mars due to gas bursting through the layers of carbon dioxide (CO2) ice.
According to the science news site Popular Science, Mars experiences four distinct seasons, similar to Earth. ESA explains that the spider-like dark spots appear during spring on Mars when sunlight shines on the layers of carbon dioxide that have accumulated during the dark winter months on the planet.
Sunlight causes the carbon dioxide ice in the bottom layer to turn into gas. This gas accumulates and subsequently breaks through the ice sheets covering the poles of Mars. The dark material is pulled up to the surface as the gas moves and fractures the thick ice layers, which can be up to 1 meter thick.
This gas, laden with dark dust, shoots up and spreads through cracks in the ice like a fountain or geyser, eventually settling into dark spots.
The science news site Live Science describes these black spots as looking like black spiders huddling together, with legs surrounding them.
When viewed from space, these dark spots appear small, but they are actually quite large. ESA states that they can be approximately 45 meters wide, with the largest potentially reaching up to 1 kilometer.
