To be perfectly honest they're not that mysterious. In the Martian science community they're called araneiforms, and the biological origin hypothesis is fairly

To be perfectly honest they're not that mysterious. In the Martian science community they're called araneiforms, and the biological origin hypothesis is fairly fringe. Lots of good reading in these papers: - "The formation of araneiforms by carbon dioxide venting and vigorous sublimation dynamics under martian atmospheric pressure": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82763-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82763-7 - "HiRISE observations of gas sublimation-driven activity in Mars’ southern polar regions: III. Models of processes involving translucent ice": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103509003893 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910350... - "How martian araneiforms get their shapes: morphological analysis and diffusion-limited aggregation model for polar surface erosion": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103518301143 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351...