Similar polygons have been spotted before on Mars. A paper in 2023 suggested that the conditions that created the cracks could have been favorable to the emergence of microscopic life. The polygons we

Similar polygons have been spotted before on Mars. A paper in 2023 suggested that the conditions that created the cracks could have been favorable to the emergence of microscopic life. The polygons were likely created by repeated, perhaps seasonal, wet-dry cycles in the distant past. Wet-dry cycles also control the concentration of chemicals that feed the fundamental reactions leading to the forma