NASA’s Curiosity rover found a ‘sea of polygons’ on Mars

<figure> <img alt="A panorama of Mars’s Valle Grande from NASA’s Curiosity rover" data-caption="" data-portal-copyright="Image: NASA" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/nasa-curiosity-sea-of-polygons.jpeg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" /> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The latest discovery from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory/curiosity-rover/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-discovers-field-of-honeycomb-textures/">field of honeycomb-shaped polygons</a> covering a Martian valley called Valle Grande. As <a href="https://gizmodo.com/nasas-curiosity-rover-finds-a-vast-sea-of-strange-honeycomb-patterns-on-mars-2000792909"><em>Gizmodo</em></a> reports, Curiosity has snapped pictures of the unusual terrain texture before, called polygonal fractures, each about 1.5 to 3 inches wide, but NASA says it's previously only found them in small patches, "nothing on the scale discovered in Valle Grande." </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Curiosity captured a 360-degree panorama of the "sea of polygons" on June 19th and 20th (Martian sols 4,930 and 4,931) that shows the texture spreading out in all directions. Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada says the Curiosity team "measur …</p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/science/973314/nasa-curiosity-rover-mars-polygons">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>