Now, you might look at the photos and say– well, that’s clearly a dried mudflat. Sure, we usually call it “dirt” here on Earth, but it’s rigolith by any other name. So NASA isn’t jumping the gun, and their announcement conservatively says that they aren’t sure how the polygonal features formed. The consensus is that Mars was once “warm and wet” but that’s a relative term– how warm, and how wet, are very much up for debate. Speaking of crushing hexagons under Curiosity’s wheels– did anyone think said wheels would last this long?