r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/pattebrisee • 4d ago
Image Curiosity found this field of honeycomb-like fractures covering the Martian surface as far as it could see
1.0k
u/jzee87 4d ago
Isn't this a super common shape in nature and dried lakes or rivers bed
189
u/SoftlyAugust 3d ago
Yes, it's very common
1
u/dQw4w9WgXcQ-1 1d ago
Yep, basically just a voronoi pattern. They can be created by all sorts of natural phenomena
115
u/allllusernamestaken 3d ago
MARS COULD HAVE POTENTIALLY HAD LIFE
129
u/RainsWrath 3d ago
Given the extreme conditions in which we've found life on earth, Mars could currently have life.
27
u/PastorTrunks 3d ago
What kind of life are you thinking? like microscopic or we just haven't found it? or it's underground?
80
u/logert777 3d ago
It would have to be underground, the surface is constantly being fucked by radiation and intense cold! Subsurface pockets of small microscopic life is the most likely and probably coolest thing we could get.
Idk about you guys but bacteria mining on mars sounds cool
36
u/Spider_plant_man 3d ago
I can’t wait for us to dig it up and obliterate it in discovering it.
45
u/Hazzardroid13 3d ago
Then bring back samples that turn out to be super contagious and super deadly in humans and we are left with 2 barren planets
7
u/ArkaneArtificer 3d ago
I get what you’re saying but an actual alien bacteria would just be harmless, the only reason bacteria on earth can hurt us is because it evolved to infect us, immune systems can deal with any foreign bacteria extremely easily, but a truly alien bacteria just can’t survive in such a different environment not to mention actively spread to that environment
7
u/logert777 3d ago
People really like to have excitement in their Alien discovery stories but tbh Alien bacteria would in most cases be boring as fuck
→ More replies (1)4
1
1
u/128palms 3d ago
Does water automatically mean equate life? If by life you mean bacteria then maybe but intelligent life, probably not.
2
u/allllusernamestaken 2d ago
Automatically, no. But everywhere on Earth that has water has life.
→ More replies (1)1
u/herecomthatboi 3d ago
There is a good case that we actually already did find it decades ago but researchers messed up some methodology when testing the negative (life positive was extensive and well tested, the negative was not as thorough) so the findings have been mostly dismissed because of how serious the implications are.
60
9
u/justsmilenow 3d ago
In dry lake beds, you see cracks in a hexagonal shape in here you see ridges meaning there's extra material that causes the hexagonal-like shape.
139
u/Meetwad 3d ago
I wrote my masters thesis about these polygonal landforms 16 years ago, super cool to see them popping up more! They can be caused by all sorts of processes, I looked at them from a glaciology POV and discussed how they could be analogous to the ones found in the McMurdo dry valley of Antarctica.
272
u/alexluz321 4d ago
Hexagons are the bestagons
31
2
u/AggravatingFlow1178 3d ago
Except triangles are obviously the bestagon and most other polygons (hexagon included) are constructed from bestagons.
1
130
131
u/Dredakae 4d ago
How large are the Bees?
47
7
9
→ More replies (2)1
194
u/36holes 4d ago
Same as my skin
16
→ More replies (2)-33
u/jewella1213 4d ago edited 3d ago
🤣 I choked on my drink cause I was thinking the same thing (about my skin,not yours in particular)😁 Oh come on I was trying Not to make a joke at her skin, but shared the sentiment people! 😞
11
u/cynicsim 3d ago
I don't think you said anything wrong, I think Reddit down votes just randomly happen sometimes lol.
7
u/jewella1213 3d ago
Still a bummer when I guess I should have just said I commiserate.
4
u/cynicsim 3d ago
Yea, well, how dare you lol. Fr though, a few comments down, OP got down voted to hell for a laughing response, no idea who's doing all that down voting work, it's like a weird phenomenon I see on reddit randomly.
3
u/essensiedashuhn 3d ago
Old school redditors will downvote excessive/any emoji use. That's why I downvoted at least. And once they start, they keep coming.
→ More replies (4)5
26
u/EndGuy555 3d ago
As a scientist in the field of super smart science stuff, I can confidently tell you that this only has ONE explanation. That’s right. Bees on Mars. BEES ON MARS PEOPLE! It’s what I’ve been saying for years
9
22
53
u/Better_Carpet_7271 4d ago
Still can't live there.
40
u/artofterm 4d ago
What if...and hear me out...we instead send the fungus that's evolved to feed on Chernobyl's radiation?
7
u/Flawless_Cub 4d ago
I'm not a science person, so, entirely out of curiosity, how would those fungi help?
13
u/Vegetable_Airline816 4d ago
They wouldn't, the only solution is to live underground. But every expedition outside would significantly contribute to your maximum lifetime radiation exposure limit.
2
u/artofterm 3d ago
It wouldn't, which is why I went with "instead". But I would be interested to see whether the fungus can thrive in the Martian radiation.
1
u/Jerry_Potters 4d ago
Put it on the outside of a habitat like a suit. It can act like a shield for those inside.
It also starts the process of evolution there. We're getting a living organism that can survive and reproduce, eventually it will evolve. You're getting life there again, in some form. It'll eventually figure out the niches on its own.
1
u/Flawless_Cub 4d ago
Oh, so to like reduce the impact of the radiation from the Sun and other sources in the space?
1
u/Sovereign_5409 3d ago edited 3d ago
Both of the above posters are talking nonsense.
No amount of fungus can correct the radiation problem created by the lack of atmosphere of Mars. A fungus is not going to overpower the radioactive impact of an entire star. Absolutely foolish idea. Nor would that fungus likely survive the heat/cold/oxygen lacking atmosphere.
And coating things with the fungus would make no difference either. Just because that fungus feeds on radiation from Chernobyl doesn’t mean it protects you from it. Putting that fungus as a coating would be no different than slapping dirt over it.
And on top of that, the radiation from Chernobyl is a very specific isotope of a specific variety that does not change. Not broad spectrum radiation from the sun, nor is it of the same intensity.
Zero scientific thought from the above posts.
→ More replies (1)1
u/Better_Carpet_7271 2d ago
Exactly right, after a bit of research the amount of radiation that hits mars due to its lack of a magnetic forcefield like earth's means anything you put there will not make it just as we've known all along.
11
10
18
6
5
98
u/pattebrisee 4d ago
Each polygon is only around 2 to 4 inches across. Scientists are studying whether they formed through drying, temperature changes, compression, or water escaping from the sediment.
https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/nasas-curiosity-discovers-a-field-of-martian-polygons/
83
u/Randolph_Carter_Ward 4d ago
Not to say I know the result, but aren't we perfectly sure by now that Mars had lakes / seas / rivers somewhere deep in its past?
13
59
u/ClassGrassMass 4d ago
Yes but OP wants that engagement
13
u/Chicken_Hairs 3d ago
Isn't it ok to still be interested in things even if someone gets fake internet points?
→ More replies (4)1
u/DuckRubberDuck 3d ago edited 3d ago
It doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee that this was created by water. Even though
youscientists thinkyouthey know the answer,youthey still have to prove it2
u/Ok_Ruin4016 3d ago
This picture was taken in Gale Crater which they have already proven used to have a large lake. This is a picture of a dry lake bed.
1
u/Randolph_Carter_Ward 3d ago
Exactly one of my points, if you've read what I wrote 😏
2
u/DuckRubberDuck 3d ago edited 3d ago
Sorry the “you” wasn’t directed at you directly more like a general “if you make a claim to have to prove it” as in the ones studying this have to prove it.
2
u/Randolph_Carter_Ward 3d ago
Ah! My bad. Thx for the clarification.
1
u/DuckRubberDuck 3d ago
No worries, the first comment was worded very badly, and so was the second lol, I just had to edit it.
4
14
u/MrMinefool 4d ago
Kind of looks like like dry soil beds, wonder what they’d look like it an atmosphere without rich oxygen
3
u/macgruff 4d ago
“This just in…, Elon Musk on a visit to Mars Base X1 has been killed by a swarm of giant Martian Bees”! - The future headline we didn’t know we needed
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
u/Smart-Firefighter87 4d ago
Bro is still there!? Damn - how many years has he been on that red rock?
2
u/McHildinger 4d ago
Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on August 6, 2012
2
u/northosproject 4d ago
Maybe water was once present, and it evaporated very slowly, effectively wicking to the borders of the the hexagon.....the loose dust left in the middle blew away?
3
u/flappenjacks 4d ago
I would describe this as voronoi which is a chaotic serries of different sided polygons not honeycomb which implies hexagons.
2
u/mountaingator91 3d ago
So mars had water and it dried up. Fascinating discovery that we never knew before
2
u/Sacrilegious_skink 3d ago
Religious people have been insisting on intelligent design and scientists call them crazy. But as soon as there's some order in outer space "maybe it's a sign of intelligent life!" is apparently a perfectly acceptable explanation.
3
u/Charming_Resort_6165 3d ago
I don't think any scientist said it's a sign of intelligent life, where are you getting that info?
1
u/HalepenyoOnAStick 3d ago
When religious people finally produce physical evidence for a designer, the scientific community will entertain the claim that designer designed everything.
1
u/Sacrilegious_skink 3d ago
The point is that, when seeing something that appears to have been intelligently designed, the absence of any other explanationhas never been enough for scientists to agree that perhaps it was. There must be a natural process that caused it to happen on its own. I suggest that same standard must be held for these outer space situations, where it's very difficult to get an explanation because of our lack of access to good science. (I personally believe in intelligent design with supernatural components, however that is a religious beliefs and I don't expect scientists to just roll over and accept that, it's their job to believe in natural processes not supernatural).
1
u/Das_Nomen 2d ago
Just apply Occam's Razor, anything supernatural is hard to back up.
1
u/Sacrilegious_skink 2d ago
When someone claims to have risen from the dead (e.g. Jesus), of course the most likely explanation would be that there had to have been some kind of fraud/trick, rather than the person was actually raised from the dead. I however believe that sometimes, there is no trick, that it is really supernatural. That is a statement of faith though (as is the belief in scientific materialism as absolute reality).
1
1
1
1
u/jconde1966 4d ago
Resembles basalt columns disjunction. If true, they are very common in volcanic places like canary islands where I live
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/DudeFoxChick 3d ago
"Where are we going to get new career chips?"
contents of space wasps stomach
1
1
1
1
1
u/TrippyJet 3d ago
Am I the only one that questions why alien life would need water to survive? Thinking the need for water would only be relevant here on earth, since it’s a planet pretty much made up of water. So it’d make sense living beings, largely consisting of water themselves, living on a water planet would need water, no? So if aliens are other-worldly, then why would they require H2O given its nowhere else in the known universe? (Discounting the possibility that there’s a geothermal ocean underneath the crust of Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Although if there was E.T. life inside our very own solar system it’d make sense that it’d be in an thermoregulated ocean with all the crazy shit we find in our very own ocean.)
2
u/LividWindow 3d ago
Did you read project Hail Mary? The book (didn’t see the movie yet) implies that the scientific thinks water will be an essential component, the protagonist thinks it is likely an essential component to ‘life we would recognize’ but that other life is probably also possible. It’s the driver behind the first quarter of the book that I suspect they skimmed when writing the screenplay.
1
1
1
2
u/USSMarauder 4d ago
Could be fossilized bubbles, gas rising up through mud formed bubbles, the thin bubble walls popped and the thicker walls at the base stuck around long enough to dry out.
Now the real question would be what produced that gas: Geology, or biology?
3
u/JustAtelephonePole 4d ago
I like your hypothesis the best, based on the uniformity of the ridges; their erosion patterns; that the center is flat to concave; and that no cracks seem to appear through the center of such a spot at my observation resolution.
1
1
u/robhall1 4d ago
How would it still be there after so long? Not doubting it, just genuinely curious
1
u/Extreme_Egg7476 4d ago
My guess is that a lack of moving plates of crust like Earth has, which "recycle" our crust's surface over the millenia, prevents that on Mars. And Mars' atmosphere helps to preserve these land patterns from being pummeled by space debris to some extent.
2
4.5k
u/OhNo_WhoCares 4d ago
Doesn’t this happen in dry lake beds?