NASA’s Curiosity rover has stumbled on the largest patch of polygon-shaped ground fractures it has ever seen on Mars, a discovery that could reveal more about the planet’s watery past.
The polygon fractures discovered by Curiosity in Gale crater, Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.
The unusual terrain lies in a valley known as Valle Grande on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp inside Gale crater, where Curiosity has been climbing for years.
A 360-degree panorama captured June on 19 and 20, 2026 shows honeycomb-like polygons stretching to the horizon in every direction.
Each fracture measures roughly 4 to 8 cm (1.5-3 inches) across, and the pattern even climbs the flanks of a nearby sand-capped butte the team has nicknamed Miraflores, which rises about 6 m (20 feet) above the surrounding terrain.
Curiosity has photographed small clusters of these geometric shapes before, but nothing on this scale.
“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said Curiosity team member Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”
According to the team, not all Martian polygons share the same origin story.
Some patterns Curiosity has previously examined were left behind by drying mud, while others can form through repeated freeze-thaw cycles or from compression that forces water out of buried sediment.
The researchers have not yet determined which mechanism — or combination of mechanisms — produced the newly spotted field.
“Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 5-km- (3-mile-) tall mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014,” they said.
“The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information.”
“We have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.”
