In recent times, there’ve been numerous surprising discoveries on Mars, including popcorn-shaped rocks. However, one recent discovery stands out because of its potential implications for the future. NASA’s Curiosity rover stumbled upon a rock and unintentionally broke open, revealing an unprecedented finding on the Red Planet.
Pure sulfur. According to a NASA press release on Thursday, the robot’s encounter with the rock caused it to split into two pieces. Considering Curiosity weighs about 1 ton, this incident is plausible. Scientists found a yellowish substance inside the Martian rock, which the space agency has identified as pure elemental sulfur.
The enclave is key. The site of the fortunate accident is the Gediz Vallis channel, a space filled with rocks that look suspiciously like the sulfur rock before it was accidentally crushed. This suggests that elemental sulfur may possibly be abundant in the vicinity.
According to scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert. It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
Rock similar to the one the Curiosity rover cracked open, photographed nine days after sulfur discovery.
What it can tell us. Researchers say that sulfates are salts that form when sulfur, usually in compound form, mixes with other minerals in water. When the water evaporates, the minerals mix and dry, leaving the sulfates behind. Hence, those sulfate minerals can tell us a lot about Mars, from the story of what happened to its water to how the planet has eroded over time.
Martian gibberish. It so happens that scientists don’t have a great track record to fall back on after the finding, mainly because they’re just beginning to understand the history of Mars. Pure sulfur only forms under a very limited set of conditions. It's not clear that they occurred in the region of Mars where Curiosity made its discovery. However, it looks like they did.
Having said that, it’s becoming increasingly evident that discovering pure sulfur on the surface of Mars could lead to more unknown discoveries. Sulfur is crucial for life as it’s absorbed in the form of sulfates and is used to produce two essential amino acids necessary for creating proteins in living organisms.
Moving forward. In its recent statement, NASA claims it’ll direct its focus to the area of the accident while collecting data on the rock fragment. Gediz Vallis, an area rich in Martian history, is an ancient waterway whose rocks still bear the marks of a river that flowed over them billions of years ago. It’s highly probable that this area holds more surprises within the rocky terrain of the channel.
This article was written by Miguel Jorge and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | NASA
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