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.…