A fortunate break revealed a shock inside a martian rock

Curiosity traversed the Gediz Vallis channel and drove over a rock that cut up open to disclose pure yellow sulfur crystals.

The sulfur crystals, as seen on Could 30, are elemental sulfur, or pure sulfur. Curiosity decided what the crystals had been made from. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has made an surprising discovery that one scientist likened to discovering an “oasis within the desert.”

On Could 30, Curiosity traversed the Gediz Vallis channel and drove over a rock that cut up open to disclose pure yellow sulfur crystals. These crystals, in keeping with a NASA press release, are a primary for the area and pose questions concerning the geological historical past of Mars.  

“Discovering a discipline of stones made from pure sulfur is like discovering an oasis within the desert,” mentioned Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s undertaking scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, within the launch. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we now have to elucidate it. Discovering unusual and surprising issues is what makes planetary exploration so thrilling.”

The Gediz Vallis Channel and sulfur

Consultants had identified concerning the Gediz Vallis channel manner earlier than NASA despatched a rover there. Flowing water and particles possible created the area, which carved into a part of Mt. Sharp. Piles of particles across the space recommend that flooding and landslides introduced them there at one level. Flowing water possible carried smoother stones.

Associated: The place did the water on Mars go?

Inside the particles, Curiosity imaged jagged rocks rimmed with a white halo. Scientists suspect that dry avalanches introduced these rocks there, and their white halos shaped after they soaked up water within the space. The channel is in a area wealthy with sulfates. Any earlier readings of sulfates have been a mixture of sulfur and different minerals. On this area, the Mars Curiosity rover imaged a discipline of varied pure sulfur stones and drilled its forty first rock pattern.