Weird patterns with black lines on Mars

Par quoi sont formés ces polygones et traînées bleutées à la surface de Mars ? © Nasa, JPL-Caltech, UArizona

Here’s a new geological interest from Mars, captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe’s HiRISE instrument, which tells more about the effect of the seasons on the Red Planet’s surface.

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[EN VIDÉO] The MRO satellite: 10 years of classic images of Mars
The space probe MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) has been in orbit around Mars since March 10, 2006. For ten years, the satellite took countless images of the planet to map its surface. NASA decided to combine the best in this short video.

Mars continues to delight us with extraordinary new images captured from space by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

On March 30, HiRISE tool, whose mission was to photograph the Red Planet from every angle, gave us a surprising view of the Martian surface, studded with strange polygonal patterns. A patchwork of these fractures is present in the Martian soil At high latitudes. It is in places associated with the appearance of black and blue lines.

The Martian landscape is made up of strange polygons.  © NASA, JPL-Caltech, UArizona

A spring on Mars

It’s surprising Metamorphosis This part of Mars is most simply connected to the change in temperature and more precisely connected to the arrival of spring!

In Winter, water in the ground freezes and expands, slicing the surface of the land into many polygons. But in spring, with rising temperatures, Dry ice Stored under the surface, instead of passing through the stage, it is converted to gas Liquid. A well-known process in physics called sublimation. This change opens the passages, especially at the level of the corners of the polygons, which will then allow the jets to escape Carbon dioxide. It is these jets that contain fine black particles that leave dark and bluish traces on the surface. The orientation of these marks may vary depending on the wind direction.

These polygons last for years, with cracks opening and closing Seasons Martians are slowly eroding the terrain.

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