NASA’s Curiosity Rover Makes Groundbreaking Discovery of Yellow Sulfur Crystals on Mars

Since October 2023, the rover Curiosity has been finding out the area of Mars, which is wealthy in sulfates – sulfuric acid salts, that are one of many primary parts of pure land and floor water. However the place sulfur-based minerals have been discovered previously—in different phrases, a combination of sulfur and different supplies—the Curiosity rock that was not too long ago cut up open consists of elemental, pure sulfur – clear

We affiliate sulfur with the odor of rotten eggs (because of the motion of hydrogen sulfide), however elemental sulfur is odorless. It types solely in a slim vary of circumstances that scientists haven’t linked with the historical past of the location. Curiosity discovered a whole lot of it – an entire discipline of vibrant rocks that appear to be the one the rover broke up.

“Discovering a discipline of rocks made from pure sulfur is like discovering an oasis within the desert,” mentioned Ashwin Vasavada, a scientist at NASA. – It should not be there, so now we have now to determine it out. Discovering unusual and sudden issues is what makes planetary exploration so thrilling, he mentioned.

Though the sulfur crystals have been too small and fragile to pattern with a drill, scientists determined to take them from a close-by rock. After making a gap within the rock and preserving the fabric, the rover moved ahead.

That is certainly one of a number of discoveries made by Curiosity within the Aeolis Mons area, which the rover has been getting into since 2014. Every layer of the mountain represents a unique interval of Martian historical past . Curiosity’s mission is to analyze the place and when the planet’s historical land might have supplied the vitamins for microbial life, if something ever arose on Mars.

Yellow sulfur crystals have been present in element within the Vallis Gediz canyon, probably the most geologically fascinating locations on the Purple Planet. Scientists imagine that it was carved​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​with These hypotheses have been formulated primarily based on an evaluation of the shapes of the rocks which can be scattered over it – a few of them are spherical like river rocks, and others are angular in form that appear to be dry, stone landslides.