• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

ESA Orbiter Spots “Sign Of Spiders” On Mars

April 27, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has spotted what they are calling “signs of spiders from Mars”.

The images, taken of the southern polar region of the Red Planet, show what look like giant spiders on the planet’s surface. They aren’t of course, but are features created in the ice as Martian winter turns to Martian spring.

Advertisement

“These small, dark features form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months,” ESA explains. “The sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice. The gas bursts free in Martian springtime, dragging dark material up to the surface as it goes and shattering layers of ice up to a metre thick.”

As the gas emerges, pushing dust and sand up as it goes, it creates giant fountains that then fall back down to the planet. As it settles, it creates the dark patches seen in the image, between 45 meters (150 feet) and 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) across.



So, why do we see these patterns, really a combination of dust and the cracks in the ice, as spiders? The phenomenon of seeing familiar patterns in objects is called pareidolia. In terms of our evolution, it makes sense that we spot patterns that could be a danger to us (e.g. a snake or a hungry bear) as quickly as we possibly can. It’s why we see faces where faces definitely don’t belong.

Advertisement

Carl Sagan explained in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, that the ability to identify threats was incredibly important to our own survival.

Early humans that ran away from what they thought was a lion hiding in the bushes survived. Those who couldn’t spot this lion “pattern” would be eaten by it. The lion, not the pattern, that is. And if they ran away but it turned out that the lion was in fact just a rock, that’s fine; those humans survived either way and passed on their genes to the next generation.

“Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the outside world. One way the brain accomplishes this goal is by detecting and learning patterns, which are essentially statistical regularities in the environment, because these patterns help the brain decide how to react or behave in order to survive,” Dr Jess Taubert, from the University of Queensland, previously told IFLScience.

As Sagan pointed out, finding patterns (where patterns exist or not) was a vital precautionary survival skill, but could lead to the misinterpretation of random images or patterns of light as faces and familiar objects. In this case, seeing scattered debris as giant Martian spiders.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China’s Aug export growth unexpectedly picks up speed, imports solidly up
  2. Bolivian president calls for global debt relief for poor countries
  3. Five Seasons Ventures pulls in €180M fund to tackle human health and climate via FoodTech
  4. Humanity’s Journey To A Metal-Rich Asteroid Launches Today. Here’s How To Watch

Source Link: ESA Orbiter Spots "Sign Of Spiders" On Mars

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • What Is Kakeya’s Needle Problem, And Why Do We Want To Solve It?
  • “I Wasn’t Prepared For The Sheer Number Of Them”: Cave Of Mummified Never-Before-Seen Eyeless Invertebrates Amazes Scientists
  • Asteroid Day At 10: How The World Is More Prepared Than Ever To Face Celestial Threats
  • What Happened When A New Zealand Man Fell Butt-First Onto A Powerful Air Hose
  • Ancient DNA Confirms Women’s Unexpected Status In One Of The Oldest Known Neolithic Settlements
  • Earth’s Weather Satellites Catch Cloud Changes… On Venus
  • Scientists Find Common Factors In People Who Have “Out-Of-Body” Experiences
  • Shocking Photos Reveal Extent Of Overfishing’s Impact On “Shrinking” Cod
  • Direct Fusion Drive Could Take Us To Sedna During Its Closest Approach In 11,000 Years
  • Earth’s Energy Imbalance Is More Than Double What It Should Be – And We Don’t Know Why
  • We May Have Misjudged A Fundamental Fact About The Cambrian Explosion
  • The Shoebill Is A Bird So Bizarre That Some People Don’t Even Believe It’s Real
  • Colossal’s “Dire Wolves” Are Now 6 Months Old – And They’ve Doubled In Size
  • How To Fake A Fossil: Find Out More In Issue 36 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • Is It True Earth Used To Take 420 Days To Orbit The Sun?
  • One Of The Ocean’s “Most Valuable Habitats” Grows The Only Flowers Known To Bloom In Seawater
  • World’s Largest Digital Camera Snaps 2,104 New Asteroids In 10 Hours, Mice With 2 Dads Father Their Own Offspring, And Much More This Week
  • Simplest Explanation For “Anomalous” Signals Coming From Underneath Antarctica Ruled Out
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version