NASA’s Mars Rover Is Heading To Explore These Freaky Spiderwebs Called Boxwork

NASA’s Curiosity rover is wrapping up its time in the Mars Gediz Vallis channel, and is making its way to an area of the Martian surface referred as the Boxwork. The Boxwork feature was first viewed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in 2006, and looks like spiderwebs stretching across the Martian surface.

Earlier this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) released an image of Mars that sent chills down the spines of those with arachnophobia. What appeared to look like a swarm of spiders across the Martian surface was actually features that form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the winter months. Now, NASA’s Curiosity rover is getting ready to head to an area of Mars that looks like spiderwebs stretching across the Martian surface, referred to as the Boxwork.

The Boxwork area was first discovered by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in 2006. The spiderweb-like area is believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp’s last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock, and then hardened. Once the portions of the rock had eroded away, the remaining minerals cemented themselves in the fractures, and the end result was the weblike Boxwork.

Boxwork is also found in small patches in caves across Earth. According to the National Park Service, this spiderweb-like feature is most abundant in Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. Boxwork in Wind Cave is made of thin blades of calcite that project from cave walls and ceilings, forming a honeycomb pattern. The fins intersect with one another at various angles, forming “boxes” on all cave surfaces. The origin of the Boxwork feature remains one of the biggest mysteries of Wind Cave.

According to NASA, Mount Sharp’s Boxwork structures stand apart from those on Earth because they formed as water was disappearing from Mars, and because they are so extensive, spanning an area of 6 to 12 miles.

“These ridges will include minerals that crystallized underground, where it would have been warmer, with salty liquid water flowing through,” remarked Kirsten Siebach of Rice University in Houston, a Curiosity scientist studying the region. “Early Earth microbes could have survived in a similar environment. That makes this an exciting place to explore.”

NASA”s Curiosity rover has traveled about 20 miles since landing in 2012, and is currently driving along the western edge of Gediz Vallis channel. It will take about a month of travel before it reaches the Boxwork.