There are, indeed, "spiders" on Mars

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


"Ziggy played guitar,
jamming good with Weird and Gilly,
And The Spiders from Mars."

--David Bowie, "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"

I think Bowie would be pleased.

A series of black, spider-like structures have been found in the soil of Mars. They are known as "araneiform terrain," geological features created when frozen carbon dioxide heats beneath the surface of Mars. Once turned to gas, the CO2 radiates outward, cutting spindly, spider-like channels into the Martian soil.

This tidbit comes on heels of a June announcement from NASA, stating the Curiosity rover has found "evidence preserved in rocks" that Mars might well have once supported life. There are "tough" organic molecules in the sedimentary rock of Mars and there are seasonal releases of methane into the planet's atmosphere. That latter point is pertinent to any search for current life on Mars.

You can read the whole release here, but it's slightly disappointing. I say that partly due to the build up that always seems to come from these NASA announcements. Usually there's blurb days ahead of time with a headline along the lines of "NASA plans major announcement regarding findings by the Curiosity rover on Mars." I understand PR and I understand the need for hype, but these announcements seldom amount to "major announcements." No, I do not dispute that each of these discoveries is scientifically relevant and do indeed further build towards a case for life on Mars, past or tantalizingly present. I guess it's the kid in me that always feels let down when I hear the inevitable nature of the news, leaving me uttering an admittedly blinkered. "Oh. That's all it is?"

That and if you read the linked release, there's a rhetorical sense in the writing that NASA is pleading, "We're really close. Just keep the program funded. Please?" The "spider" images also seem to serve the same purpose. "Look at the cool things we can find. See? Spiders!"

I'll still follow the updates, wishing for the best but accepting the nature of any findings. As a writer, I'll keep hoping, hoping that I may at last write that blog post of my reaction to news that life...even if just microbial...unquestionably and definitively exists elsewhere in the universe. Or even, perhaps, evidence life far more evolved once existed on Mars.

I won't be betting much on that latter prospect, though.

An image from the Curiosity rover.


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets