NASA Makes Groundbreaking Discovery on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has made a groundbreaking discovery on Mars, unearthing yellowish-green crystals of pure sulfur, a find that has never been reported on the red planet before. The discovery was made as the one-ton rover traversed a pile of rocks, cracking one open in the process, in the deep and winding Gediz Vallis channel, a region believed to have been shaped by water around 3 billion years ago.

Ashwin Vasavada, a Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, described the discovery as the “most unexpected” and “strangest” of the entire mission. He noted that the discovery was partly due to luck, as not every rock contains something of interest.

The discovery was made when the rover’s operators noticed white stones in the distance and decided to investigate further. On May 30, Vasavada and his team examined images from the rover that revealed a crushed rock in the wheel’s tracks.

Upon closer inspection, the team was astounded by the “gorgeous texture and color inside” what they initially thought was a typical Martian rock. Their surprise was compounded when subsequent analysis revealed the rock to be composed entirely of sulfur.

Vasavada noted that sulfur rocks are typically “beautiful, translucent and crystalline,” but the harsh Martian weather over millions of years had sandblasted the rocks’ exterior, causing them to blend in with the rest of the orange Martian landscape.

Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012, had previously discovered a number of sulfates, or salts that contain sulfur, which are formed when water evaporates. On Earth, pure sulfur only forms under extreme conditions, such as volcanic processes or in hot springs.

The Gediz Vallis channel, where the discovery was made, is located on the sides of the 3-mile-tall Mount Sharp, which the rover has been steadily climbing for the past decade. Scientists are now investigating what the presence of pure sulfur could mean for Mars and its cosmic history.

The discovery could potentially inspire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk even further in his ambition to colonize the red planet in the future.