Scientists were on May 30 when a rock on which NASA’s Curiosity rover broke apart to reveal something never before noticed on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich in sulfates, a type of salt that is made up of sulfur and formed by the evaporation of water. But while previous detections were of sulfur-based minerals (in other words, an aggregate of sulfur and other tissues), the newly cracked Curiosity rock is made of elemental (pure) sulfur. It is unclear what relationship, if any, elemental sulfur has with other sulfur ores in the region.
While other people associate sulfur with the smell of rotten eggs (a result of hydrogen sulfide), elemental sulfur is odorless. Bureaucracy only in a narrow diversity of situations that scientists have not related to the history of this place. And Curiosity discovered a lot of them: a whole box of shiny rocks that look like the ones the rover crushed.
“Finding a stone box made of natural sulfur is like locating an oasis in the desert,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity mission scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to. “”Discovering strange and unforeseen things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting. “
It’s one of many off-road discoveries Curiosity has made in the Gediz Vallis Channel, a groove that winds along a 5-kilometer-high stretch of Mount Sharp, at the base of which the rover has been located since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents another era in Martian history. Curiosity’s project is to examine where and when the planet’s ancient terrestrial form may have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if it formed on Mars.
Discovered years before Curiosity’s launch, the Gediz Vallis channel is one of the main reasons the science team sought to make a stopover in this part of Mars. Scientists found that the canal was excavated through flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of rocks and sediment that extended 3 km downstream of the canal. The goal was to better understand how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there is still much to learn about this spectacular landscape.
Since Curiosity arrived at the canal earlier this year, scientists have been reading whether ancient floods or landslides have accumulated the giant mounds of debris that rise here from the back of the canal. Curiosity’s most recent clues suggest that both played a role: some piles were most likely produced through violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.
These conclusions emerge from the rocks found in the rubble mounds: while water-borne stones are rounded like river rocks, some rubble mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that would possibly have been deposited dry by avalanches.
Finally, the water penetrated all the curtains that were deposited here. Chemical reactions caused by bleached water form a white “halo” on some rocks. Wind and sand erosion has revealed those halo shapes over time.
“It wasn’t a quiet time on Mars,” said Becky Williams, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and deputy principal investigator for Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. “There was an exciting activity here. We’re seeing flows in the channel, adding life-filled floods and rock-rich flows. “
All of those water lines continue to tell a more complex story than the team’s early expectations, and they were interested in taking a rock pattern from the channel to be more informed. On June 18 they had their chance.
While the sulfur rocks were too small and fragile to sample with the drill, a giant rock nicknamed “Mammoth Lakes” was seen nearby. Rover engineers had to look for a rock component that would allow drilling and locating a parking area. on the smooth, inclined surface.
After Curiosity drilled its 41st hole using the sturdy drill at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist poured the pulverized rock into tools inside its abdomen to conduct further investigations so scientists could figure out what it was. Passing on. materials of which rock is made.
Curiosity has since moved away from Mammoth Lakes and is now leaving to see what other surprises await it in the channel.
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