NASA scientists have recreated mysterious Martian "spiders" in a lab, replicating the formations first observed by the Mars Orbiter. These dark, crack-like structures, explained by carbon dioxide sublimation,

Lauren Mc Keown of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said, “I love DUSTIE. It’s historic; the wine barrel-size chamber was used to test a prototype of a rasping tool designed for NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander. The tool was used to break water ice, which the spacecraft scooped up and analyzed near the planet’s north pole.”

NASA has recreated Mars' iconic "spiders" in a first-of-its-kind lab experiment, and you can watch it happen in this video.

The Kieffer model, the researchers concluded, was an accurate representation of the processes that produce, not just the spiders, but other seasonal features that appear on the surface of Mars. In future research, the team hopes to fine-tune and adapt their experiments to understand these features and their formation in greater detail.

Mars is home to strange spider-shaped geologic formations known as the araneiform terrain, which are found mostly in the southern hemisphere.

A team of scientists at NASA have confirmed how Mars' 'spider' formations are carved by carbon dioxide. They were first discovered in 2003 and each formation can stretch more than half-a-mile from end-to-end.

To uncover the hidden features, researchers employed a sophisticated technique. New research presented at the Europlanet Science Congress this week has uncovered astonishing findings beneath the dusty surface of Mars.