NASA’s Curiosity Rover Sees Martian ‘Spiderwebs’ Up Close - UNIVERSE

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this panorama of boxwork formations — the low ridges seen here with hollows in between them — using its Mastcam on Sept. 26, 2025.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

For about six months, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been exploring a region full of geologic formations called boxwork, low ridges standing roughly 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) tall with sandy hollows in between. Crisscrossing the surface for miles, the formations suggest ancient groundwater flowed on this part of the Red Planet later than scientists expected. This possibility raises new questions about how long microbial life could have survived on Mars billions of years ago, before rivers and lakes dried up and left a freezing desert world behind.

The boxwork formations look like giant spiderwebs when viewed from space. To explain the shapes, scientists have proposed that groundwater once flowed through large fractures in the bedrock, leaving behind minerals. Those minerals then strengthened the areas that became ridges while other portions without mineral reinforcement were eventually hollowed out by wind.

These bumpy nodules were formed by minerals left behind as groundwater was drying out on Mars billions of years ago. NASA’s Curiosity rover captured images of these pea-size features while exploring geologic formations called boxwork on Aug. 21, 2025.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Until Curiosity arrived at this region, however, no one could be sure what these formations looked like up close, and there were even more questions about how they were made.

Unpacking boxwork

Although Earth also has boxwork ridges, they’re rarely taller than a few centimeters and are usually found in caves or in dry, sandy environments. The Curiosity team wanted to get a close look at the Martian formations and gather more data. This posed a real challenge for rover drivers: They needed to send instructions to Curiosity, an SUV-size vehicle that weighs nearly a ton (899 kilograms), so that it could roll across the tops of ridges not much wider than the rover itself.

“It almost feels like a highway we can drive on. But then we have to go down into the hollows, where you need to be mindful of Curiosity’s wheels slipping or having trouble turning in the sand,” said operations systems engineer Ashley Stroupe of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Curiosity and leads the mission. “There’s always a solution. It just takes trying different paths.”

For scientists, the challenge is piecing together how such a vast network of boxwork could exist on Mount Sharp, the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain the rover has been ascending. Each layer of the mountain formed in a different era of Mars’ ancient, changing climate. The higher Curiosity goes, the more the landscape bears signs that water was drying out over time, with occasional wet periods that saw the return of rivers and lakes.

“Seeing boxwork this far up the mountain suggests the groundwater table had to be pretty high,” said Tina Seeger of Rice University in Houston, one of the mission scientists leading the boxwork investigation. “And that means the water needed for sustaining life could have lasted much longer than we thought looking from orbit.”

Previous orbital imagery included one crucial piece of evidence: dark lines running across the “spiderwebs.” In 2014, it was proposed that these lines might be what are known as central fractures, where groundwater seeped through rock cracks and allowed minerals to concentrate. Investigating the ridges up close, Curiosity found that these lines are in fact fractures, lending weight to that hypothesis.

The rover also discovered bumpy textures called nodules, an obvious sign of past groundwater that has been spotted many times by Curiosity and other Mars missions. Unexpectedly, these nodules were not found near the central fractures, but along a ridge’s walls and the hollows between them.

“We can’t quite explain yet why the nodules appear where they do,” Seeger said. “Maybe the ridges were cemented by minerals first, and later episodes of groundwater left nodules around them.”

Roving laboratory

A major part of Curiosity’s science centers on rock samples collected by the rock-pulverizing drill on the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The resulting powder can be trickled into complex science instruments in the vehicle’s body for analysis.

Last year, three samples from the boxwork region — one from a ridgetop, one from bedrock within a hollow, and one from a transitional area before Curiosity reached the ridges — were collected by the drill and analyzed with X-rays and a high-temperature oven. The X-ray analyses found clay minerals in the ridge and carbonate minerals in the hollow, providing additional clues to help understand how these features formed.

The mission recently collected a fourth sample, which was analyzed with a special technique reserved for the most intriguing science targets: After the pulverized rock went into the rover’s high-temperature oven, chemical reagents reacted with the sample to conduct what is called wet chemistry. The resulting reactions make it easier to detect certain organic compounds, carbon-based molecules important to the formation of life.

Sometime in March, Curiosity will leave the boxwork formations behind. The whole region is part of a layer on Mount Sharp enriched in salty minerals called sulfates, which formed as water was drying out on Mars. Curiosity’s team plans to continue exploring this sulfate layer for many miles in the coming year, learning more about how the ancient Red Planet’s climate changed billions of years ago.

More about Curiosity

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit: science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity 

Source: NASA’s Curiosity Rover Sees Martian ‘Spiderwebs’ Up Close - NASA   

Building batteries that don't break in the cold - Engineering - Energy & Green Tech

(a) DSC thermogram of the low-temperature electrolyte (LTE) from −85 °C to room temperature at a scan rate of 10 °C min⁻¹. (b) Linear sweep voltammetry of the LTE in a symmetric lithium cell at varying temperatures at a scan rate of 10 mV s⁻¹. (c) Nyquist EIS plot of the LTE at different temperatures. (d) Ionic conductivity of the LTE at different temperatures; the ionic conductivity of LB303 (ref. 55) is shown for comparison. Credit: Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2025). DOI: 10.1039/d5ta01626f

Extreme winter weather can strain power systems, stall electric vehicles and leave backup batteries unable to deliver energy when it is most needed. Researchers at Texas A&M University have now developed a battery design that continues operating through the coldest conditions. The team, led by Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, professor of chemical engineering and associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, published findings on a polymer-based battery in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

A battery designed for subzero conditions

Lutkenhaus said battery performance suffers in cold weather because conventional batteries contain a liquid electrolyte that transports the charge. "If that electrolyte freezes, then charge can no longer be transported. Hence, the battery will not charge or discharge.

"We saw exactly this issue in the cold snap in Chicago in 2024, where electric vehicle batteries were so cold and frozen that they did not charge at their powering stations," she said.

The team's new battery design is capable of maintaining functionality in temperatures as low as 40° below zero.

"We're able to do this because we replace the liquid electrolyte that freezes with a different electrolyte that does not. We also replace the hard inorganic materials that are sluggish at low temperatures with soft polymer materials that are a bit faster," Lutkenhaus said.

The researchers created an organic dual‑ion battery that uses redox‑active polymers instead of the inorganic electrode materials found in most commercial batteries. They combined these polymer electrodes with a diglyme‑based low‑temperature electrolyte, which remains fluid and conductive at temperatures where conventional electrolytes begin to crystallize.

As a result, the battery maintained 85% of its capacity at 0°C (32°F) and 55% at -40°C (-40°F), while sustaining high specific power rates.

Why batteries fail in the cold

Battery chemistry relies on the movement of ions through an electrolyte; as temperatures drop, this motion slows dramatically.

With their new battery design, the team avoided such collapse by pairing the low‑temperature electrolyte with soft polymer electrodes, which remain flexible and maintain electrochemical activity even as the system cools. "Hard inorganic materials are often slow at low temperatures, but soft polymer materials can move ions more easily," she said.

"When you use materials that naturally tolerate the cold, the battery doesn't have to fight its own chemistry."

Carbon fiber boosts strength and stability

The researchers also tackled mechanical durability, another factor that limits battery performance in demanding environments. Instead of using metal current collectors—which can add weight and crack under stress—the team incorporated carbon‑fiber weaves. These reinforced the battery while still conducting charge effectively.

The result is a "structural battery," one that stores energy and simultaneously provides mechanical strength. Such dual‑function designs can be advantageous in electric vehicles, drones or any system where weight and structural integrity matter. "Mechanical stress can damage a battery over time," Lutkenhaus said. "By building batteries that act as part of the structure, we can reduce weight and improve durability at once."

A step toward cold‑resistant energy storage

Reliable, low‑temperature performance could impact systems from personal electronics to critical infrastructure.

"With a massive storm or cold snap, electrical grids can go down. Batteries can cover those outages and gaps," Lutkenhaus said. "If we want an energy system that's resilient in all seasons, we need storage that isn't vulnerable to temperature swings."

While still in the research stage, the battery demonstrates how material innovation can overcome longstanding performance limits.

Lutkenhaus said the work points toward a future where energy storage is more dependable during extreme weather. In the meantime, she provides some practical advice: "If you're concerned about your electric vehicle or your off-grid battery, I suggest moving it inside, keeping it a little warmer in your garage and not exposing it to the elements, so it won't freeze."

The study is published in the journal Lecture Notes in Mobility. 

Provided by Texas A&M University   

by Lesley Henton, Texas A&M University

edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan 

Source: Building batteries that don't break in the cold