An amazing yellow treasure has just fallen from a rock on Mars after the Curiosity rover accidentally penetrated its unremarkable exterior.
When the rover rolled its 899-kilogram (1,982-pound) body over the rock, it opened up to reveal yellow crystals of elemental sulfur: sulfur. Although sulfates are fairly common on Mars, this is the first time sulfur has been found on the Red Planet in its pure elemental form.
Even more interesting is that the Geddes Vallis channel, where Curiosity found the rock, is filled with rocks that looked eerily similar to the sulfur rock before it was crushed by accident — suggesting that, somehow, elemental sulfur may be abundant there in some places.
“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert.” Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada says, From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“This shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
Sulfates are salts formed when Sulfurusually in Compound shapeSulfates mix with other minerals in the water. When the water evaporates, the minerals mix and dry out, leaving the sulfates behind.
These sulfate minerals can tell us a lot about Mars, such as: History of water in itand how it has been affected over time.
On the other hand, pure sulfur only forms under a very narrow range of conditions, which are not known to occur in the region of Mars where Curiosity discovered it.
There is, to be fair, a lot we don’t know about the geological history of Mars, but the discovery of large amounts of pure sulfur on the surface of Mars suggests that there is something very big that we don’t realize.
Sulfur, it is important to understand, is An essential element for all forms of life.It is usually absorbed in the form of sulfate, and is used to make two essential amino acids that organisms need to make proteins.
Since we’ve known about sulfates on Mars for a while, the discovery doesn’t tell us anything new. We haven’t found any signs of life on Mars yet, anyway. But we continue to find bits and pieces that living things might find useful, including chemistry, water, and past life conditions.
Because we’re stuck here on Earth, we’re somewhat limited in how we can get to Mars. Curiosity’s instruments have been able to analyze and identify sulfur rocks in the Geddes Vallis channel, but if it hadn’t taken a path that flipped over and cracked one of them, it might have been a while since we found them.
The next step is to figure out exactly how the sulfur might have originated there, based on what we know about Mars. That will take more work, and may involve some detailed modeling of Mars’ geological evolution.
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Meanwhile, Curiosity will continue to collect data from the same area. The Geddes Vallis is an area rich in Martian history, an ancient waterway whose rocks now bear the imprint of the ancient river that once flowed over it, billions of years ago.
Curiosity dug in hole in a rockScientists took a crushed sample from inside for chemical analysis, then began to work their way deeper into the canal, to see what other surprises might await them around the next rock.
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