New Delhi, July 31 -- NASA's Curiosity rover captured a breathtaking panoramic shot of honeycomb-like textures spread across the Red Planet. Scientists have spotted patches of these 1.5 to 3-inch small polygonal fractures many times. But nothing of this scale, as discovered in Martian valley "Valle Grande," was seen before.

NASA said that its Curiosity rover recently began climbing up Valle Grande. It captured the images on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission.

The images, NASA said, were a familiar sight to mission scientists: "honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across." But the vastness of these textures on Mars, as revealed i...