Curiosity traversed the Gediz Vallis channel and drove over a rock that break up open to reveal pure yellow sulfur crystals.
The sulfur crystals, as seen on May 30, are elemental sulfur, or pure sulfur. Curiosity determined what the crystals have been fabricated from. Credit score rating: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Rover has made an shocking discovery that one scientist likened to discovering an “oasis throughout the desert.”
On May 30, Curiosity traversed the Gediz Vallis channel and drove over a rock that break up open to reveal pure yellow sulfur crystals. These crystals, based mostly on a NASA press launchare a main for the world and pose questions regarding the geological historic previous of Mars.
“Discovering a space of stones fabricated from pure sulfur is like discovering an oasis throughout the desert,” acknowledged Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s mission scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, throughout the launch. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to elucidate it. Discovering uncommon and shocking points is what makes planetary exploration so thrilling.”
The Gediz Vallis Channel and sulfur
Consultants had acknowledged regarding the Gediz Vallis channel method sooner than NASA despatched a rover there. Flowing water and particles doable created the world, which carved into part of Mt. Sharp. Piles of particles throughout the house counsel that flooding and landslides launched them there at one stage. Flowing water doable carried smoother stones.
Related: The place did the water on Mars go?
All through the particles, Curiosity imaged jagged rocks rimmed with a white halo. Scientists suspect that dry avalanches launched these rocks there, and their white halos original after they soaked up water throughout the house. The channel is in a space rich with sulfates. Any earlier readings of sulfates have been a mix of sulfur and totally different minerals. On this space, the Mars Curiosity rover imaged a space of assorted pure sulfur stones and drilled its forty first rock sample.