NASA News: The Curiosity rover made its most unique discovery on Mars: rocks made of pure sulfur. The rover climbed up a rock and cracked it open, revealing yellow-green crystals never seen before on Mars.
Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), called it the strangest and most unexpected discovery of the Mars mission. He attributed it to luck because not every rock contains something interesting.
On May 30, Vasavada and his team inspected Curiosity’s mosaic and noticed a crushed rock in the rover’s wheel track. Closer inspection revealed a “mind-blowing” discovery, according to Vasavada.
“I think this is the strangest discovery of the whole mission and also the most unexpected. I must say there is a lot of luck involved. Not every rock has something interesting inside it,” CNN quoted Vasavada as saying.
Curiosity’s findings, including long-lived lakes and organic matter, have contributed to the Mars mission’s effort to assess the habitability of the Red Planet. Currently, scientists aim to understand the significance of pure sulfur on Mars and its implications for the planet’s history.
The Curiosity team was excited to see the rover explore the Gediz Vallis channel, which is believed to have been formed by water and debris 3 billion years ago. The channel is built into the 5-kilometer-high Mount Sharp. The rover has been climbing the mountain since 2014.
Mission scientists noticed white rocks in the distance and wanted to get a closer look at them. At JPL, the rover’s drivers rotated Curiosity 90 degrees so it could take a mosaic photo of the landscape with its cameras.
Curiosity has previously found sulfates on Mars, which are sulfur-containing salts formed by evaporated water. The team also saw gypsum or calcium sulfate in surface cracks, indicating deposits from ancient groundwater flow.
Silica on Mars
NASA’s Spirit rover broke a wheel while exploring Mars and had to be dragged along with the other five wheels driving backwards. The drag exposed bright white soil that was almost pure silica.
The discovery of silica is one of Spirit’s most important discoveries during its mission from 2004 to 2011. The silica suggests that Mars may have had hot springs or steam vents, possibly creating conditions for microbial life.
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Published: July 22, 2024, 12:59 PM IST
