NASA’s Curiosity rover has revealed an unexpected discovery on Mars: yellow crystals of pure sulfur, the first of their kind on the Red Planet. As reported by the space agency.
The discovery occurred in the Geddes Vallis channel, an area of Mount Sharp that has captured scientific attention since the rover arrived in 2014. While exploring, the 899-kilogram Curiosity accidentally broke off a rock, revealing a glowing interior.
This is the first encounter with sulfur on the Red Planet, a discovery that has astounded scientists. “It’s like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it.”
Vasavada also told CNN that what they saw when they zoomed in to see the “incredible texture and color of the interior” was “amazing,” given that it initially looked like a typical Martian rock.
pure sulfur
Although sulfates, a type of sulfur-containing salt that forms when water evaporates, are common on Mars and provide clues to its watery history, this pure sulfur, which has no odor unlike the distinctive rotten-egg odor associated with hydrogen sulfide gas, only forms under very specific conditions that until now were not thought to exist in this region of Mars.
What’s even more interesting is that there appears to be a whole field of similar rocks in the area. The abundance of these rocks in Geddes Vallis suggests that there are geological processes on Mars that we still don’t know about.
Geddes Vallis Canal on Mars
The discovery adds to other fascinating discoveries in the Geddes Vallis Channel, an ancient waterway that scientists have been eager to explore since before Curiosity launched. The rover has found evidence that the area had a very turbulent past, with violent floods and landslides that left piles of debris.
“There’s been a lot of activity here,” said Becky Williams, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson. “We’re seeing multiple flows through the channel, including active floods and rock-rich flows.”
For now, Curiosity continues its exploration, drilling into rocks to analyze their composition and look for more surprises. Although pure sulfur is too fragile to sample, the rover was able to drill into a nearby rock called Mammoth Lakes to analyze it.
Each discovery helps scientists better understand the geological history of Mars and the conditions that existed on the planet. Although we have not yet found signs of life, we continue to find elements that could have been useful to living organisms in the past.
Edited by Felipe Espinosa Wang with information from NASA, Science Alert and CNN.
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