NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers Martian Rock That Surprises Scientists

As reported by POTScientists were stunned on May 30, 2024, when a stone, Mars explorer Curiosity NASA has discovered and shown something that has never been seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

The rover will explore Mars from October 2023 a region of Mars rich in sulfatesa type of salt containing sulfur and formed when water evaporates. But where sulfur-based minerals (in other words, a mixture of sulfur and other materials) had previously been found, the rock that The newly discovered Curiosity is made of elemental sulfur (pure).It is unclear what relationship elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

Special Martian stone

Although people associate sulfur with the smell of rotten eggs (due to hydrogen sulfide), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms only in a narrow range of conditions that scientists have not linked to the history of the place. And Curiosity found plenty of it: a whole field shiny rocks similar to those crushed by the Mars rover.

“Finding a field of pure sulfur rocks is like finding an oasis in the desert.“said a Curiosity project scientist, Ashwin Vasavadafrom NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.“.

It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made during its rover tour of Gediz Valley Canalgroove passing through a part Mount Sharp5 kilometers high, to the base of which the rover has been climbing since 2014.

This 360 degree video introduces Gediz Vallis channel.the site where NASA’s Curiosity rover found sulfur crystals and drilled its 41st rock sample. The images that make up this mosaic were captured by the rover’s MastCam in June. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ISSS. Floods and Avalanches.

Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity’s mission is to study where and when the planet’s ancient terrain formed. could provide the nutrients needed for microbial lifeif it ever formed on Mars.

Floods and avalanches

The Gediz Valley channel, spotted from space several years before Curiosity’s launch, is one of the main reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists believe the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris. resulting in a ridge of rocks and sediment that stretched 3 kilometers down the mountainside below the canal. The goal was to better understand how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent discoveries have helped, there is still much to learn from this spectacular landscape.

Since Curiosity hit the channel earlier this year, Scientists have studied whether large piles of debris rising from the bottom of the canal were the result of ancient floods or landslides.. Curiosity’s latest data suggests that both factors played a role: Some of the debris piles likely arose from strong flows of water and debriswhile others appear to be the result of larger local landslides.

These conclusions are based on stones found in the rubble: stones carried by streams of water They are rounded like river rocks, some of the rubble mounds are interspersed with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.

Finally, the water filtered out all the material that had settled hereChemical reactions caused by water discolored some rocks, creating “halos.” Wind and sand erosion eventually exposed these halos.

“It was not a calm period on Mars.“, said Becky Williamsa scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and deputy principal investigator of Curiosity’s Mastcam.There was some exciting activity here. We are seeing numerous flows along the channel, including energetic floods and rock-rich flows.“.

Hole in 41

All this is evidence of water continued to tell a more complex story than the team’s initial expectations, and they were eager to take a rock sample from the canal to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.
Although the sulfur rocks were too small and fragile to be drilled, the large stone, nicknamed the “Mammoth LakesNearby. Rover engineers had to find a piece of rock that would allow them to drill safely and find a place to park on loose, sloping ground.

After Curiosity drilled hole 41 using a powerful drill on the end of the rover’s two-meter-long robotic arm, the six-wheeled “scientist” dropped crushed rock into instruments inside itself for further analysis so scientists could determine what materials the rock was made of.

Since then, Curiosity has moved away from Mammoth Lakes and is now heading to see what other surprises await discovery in the channel..