Martian Geyser - History

History

The geological features informally called dark dune spots and spiders were separately discovered on images acquired by the MOC camera on board the Mars Global Surveyor during 1998–1999. At first it was generally thought they were unrelated features because of their appearance, so from 1998 through 2000 they were reported separately on different research publications ( and -respectively), with the first "jet" or "geyser" models starting to be proposed and refined from 2000 onwards.

The name 'spiders' was coined by Malin Space Science Systems personnel, the developers of the camera. One of the first and most interesting spider photos was found by Greg Orme in October 2000. The unusual shape and appearance of these 'spider webs' and spots caused a lot of speculation about their origin. The first years' surveillance showed that during the following Martian years, 70% of the spots appear at exactly the same place, and a preliminary statistical study obtained between September 1999 and March 2005, indicated that dark dune spots and spiders are related phenomena as functions of the cycle of carbon dioxide (CO₂) ice condensation and sublimation.
It was also initially suggested that the dark spots were simply warm patches of bare ground, but thermal imaging during 2006 revealed that the temperature of these structures is as cold as the ice that covers the area, indicating they were a thin layer of dark material lying on top of the ice and kept chilled by it. However, soon after their first detection, they were discovered to be negative topographical features – i.e. radial troughs or channels of what today are thought to be geyser-like vent systems.