NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered abundant amounts of pure sulfur on the surface of Mars after it recently flew over a rock and broke it apart, surprising scientists.
The six-wheeled rover has detected sulfur on Mars before, but only in combination with other minerals, including magnesium and calcium. Pure sulfur, an odorless element that forms under very specific conditions that planetary scientists have not linked to the rover’s location, appears to be prevalent in many rocks across the region, according to a NASA report. NASA Statement.
“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” Ashwin Vasavada, the mission’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in the statement. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it.”
In the rover’s image of the rock (above), yellow sulfur crystals can be seen clustered within the interior of the body’s crushed pockets. These crystals were too small and fragile for the rover to sample with a drill, so it ended up stranded near another large rock known as Mammoth Lakes, according to NASA. Here, the rover used a drill on the end of its robotic arm to bore a hole in that rock and store it for further analysis before towing it away.
Related: NASA’s Perseverance rover spots tiny ‘snowman’ on Mars (photo)
curiousityThe AST spacecraft, now in its 12th year of mission, made its latest discovery on May 30 as it explored Geddes Canyon, a winding channel that descends the slopes of Mount Sharp in the center of Gale Crater. The spacecraft has been studying the channel for the past few months for signs of ancient microbial life.
From what we understand about Mars’ past, Mount Sharp would have been more than just a mountain. Wettest for billions of years The Geddes Vallis channel, which meanders through the mountain, was carved when the planet began to dry out, perhaps by strong winds or even violent flows of liquid water. Curiosity has identified some telltale signs of that history, particularly in piles of debris strewn within the channel. The rocks feature pale rings or halos near their edges, which scientists say are the result of water-driven chemical reactions after the rocks absorbed available minerals deposited in the area.
Scientists are not yet sure what role Mars’ history played in the formation of the newly discovered pure sulfur, or whether the element has any connection to other sulfur-based minerals previously discovered in the region.
“Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting,” Vasavada said.
