Polygonal patterns on Mars
Image credit: TW
The HiRISE Camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an intriguing image of polygonal patterns within a crater at the Martian north pole. A Space.com report states of these features: “The entire crater is around 5 km (3 miles) across and its ancient interior has undergone countless millennia of freeze/thaw cycles that have broken the surface into polygonal shapes.
This process is common on Mars and can even be found on Earth, but this particular image depicts it exceptionally nicely.”
However, as noted in this Space News, experiments with electrical discharges in the laboratory have produced intriguing analogs of these polygonal forms.
Video courtesy The Thunderbolts Project
Featured image courtesy: NASA MRO/HiRISE
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