A recent picture from the European Space Agency (ESA) looked like it had spiders in it, but they’re not real spiders.
“No, these dark spots, seen by ESA’s Mars Express on the outskirts of an area nicknamed ‘Inca City’ in the southern polar region of Mars, have a more ‘down to Earth’ explanation…” ESA confirmed on
These shapes, seen in pictures taken by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft near a place on Mars called Inca City, might scare people who are afraid of spiders. However, they aren’t spiders at all. They are small, dark marks made on Mars by gas coming out from under a layer of carbon dioxide ice.
These “spiders” form when the sun heats up layers of frozen carbon dioxide on Mars’s surface. This happens near Mars’s south pole, where it can get as cold as -243 degrees Fahrenheit, and carbon dioxide from the air turns into solid ice.
The sun’s heat makes the carbon dioxide ice at the bottom turn into gas, building up pressure like a shaken soda can. This pressure eventually breaks through the icy layer above. When the gas escapes, it throws dark material from underneath across the surface, creating patterns that look like spider legs from above, spanning 150 feet to 0.6 miles. From space, these patterns sort of look like spiders.