NASA’s Curiosity rover makes ‘amazing’ discovery on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has made an “astonishing” discovery on the surface of Mars that scientists say “shouldn’t be there.”

The one-ton probe discovered yellowish-green crystals of pure sulfur as it searched for chemical evidence that the Red Planet was once habitable.

Although sulfur-containing minerals have been observed on Mars, elemental sulfur has never been seen alone.

White rocks accidentally smashed into the Curiosity rover as it passed through the Geddes Vallis channel, revealing “strange” structures that add to growing evidence that Mars was once a habitable world.

Previous research has suggested that sulfur may have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth more than four billion years ago when the atmosphere was It was rich in sulfur and carbon, which were released through volcanic activity.

Microbes metabolized sulfur isotopes, releasing oxygen and starting a process of atmospheric oxidation, known as the Great Oxygenation Event.

But scientists did not say The discovery of Curiosity is a hint of past life on Mars.

This discovery adds to the growing evidence of other life-supporting elements identified on Mars, including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus.

What the discovery shows is that Mars once had water, which is also an essential ingredient for life.

“Finding a field of rocks made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Ashwin Vasavada, a Curiosity project scientist.

“This shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”

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The groundbreaking discovery was made on May 30 as Curiosity was driving off-road inside Geddes Vallis, a canyon that runs down a three-mile-high portion of Mount Sharp — the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014.

The six-wheeled rover has previously detected sulfur on Mars, but only mixed with other minerals like magnesium and calcium.

When sulfur combines with other elements, it gives off a pungent odor, but pure sulfur on Mars has no odor.

NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California have identified a cluster of white rocks for the first time and have instructed the Curiosity rover to explore them.

The rover sent a close-up image of the white rocks back to Earth, which included a cluster of crushed rocks near Curiosity’s wheels.

Here the team discovered the yellow crystals.

“I think this is the strangest and most bizarre discovery of the entire mission,” Vasavada said. CNN.

“I must say that luck plays a big role here. Not every rock has something interesting inside it.”

Although the sulfur rocks were too small and fragile to be sampled with a drill, a large rock dubbed “Mammoth Lakes” was spotted nearby.

Rover engineers had to find a section of rock that would allow safe digging and find a place to park the vehicle on the soft, sloping surface.

After Curiosity drilled Hole 41 with the powerful drill at the end of its seven-foot robotic arm, the six-wheeled rover transferred crushed rock to tools inside its belly for further analysis so scientists could determine what the rocks were made of.

“Nobody had pure sulfur on their bingo card,” Vasavada said.

The scientists explained that sulfur rocks are usually characterized by a “beautiful, transparent, crystalline texture.”

But the group seen on Mars had been subjected to sandblasting for millions of years, dulling its bright yellow color and making it appear red like the surrounding landscape.

However, the discovery adds to the growing evidence of other life-supporting elements on Mars, including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus.

The Geddes Vallis Channel is one of the main reasons the science team visited this part of Mars. The area is located just south of the Martian equator.

Scientists believe the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris, which traveled two miles down the mountainside below the channel.

The goal was to develop a better understanding of how this landscape has changed over billions of years, and recent evidence has provided new insights.

Since Curiosity’s arrival in the canal earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides created large piles of debris rising from the canal floor.

The latest evidence from Curiosity suggests that both played a role: Some of the piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to have been the result of local landslides.

These conclusions are based on the rocks in the debris piles. While water-borne rocks become rounded like river rocks, some debris piles are filled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.

Eventually, water seeped into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white “halo” patterns in some of the rocks. Erosion by wind and sand exposed these halo patterns over time.

“This has not been 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.

“There has been an interesting amount of activity here. We are monitoring multiple flows down the channel, including active flooding and rock-rich flows.”