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NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered “glimmering sulfur crystals” on Mars after the rover rolled over a rock.
According to the Canadian Space Agency, as the Curiosity rover was continuing its climb of Mount Sharp, a 5-kilometre-tall mountain, on May 30th of this year, it rolled over a rock and cracked it open.
Upon examination with the Canadian built Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) the instrument indicated the rocks contained “pure, elemental sulfur,” which was unexpected.
The CSA states that the APXS is “mounted on Curiosity’s robotic arm” and that “the Canadian instrument bombarded the sulfur with X-rays and alpha particles, revealing their true elemental nature.”
When NASA released the findings in mid-July they stated, “Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.”
The CSA added that “Sulfur forms under very specific conditions, so finding it in pure, elemental form suggests Mars may have experienced environments we never imagined. This discovery adds another puzzle piece to the mystery of whether Mars could have supported life in its ancient past.”
