NASA Curiosity Rover Mars Rock: NASA’s Curiosity Rover inadvertently broke a rock on Mars. The yellow thing seen inside surprised scientists on Earth. This yellow thing is sulfur crystals. Sulfur crystals have been found on Mars for the first time. Although sulfate is quite common on Mars, this is the first time that sulfur has been found in its pure element form on the red planet.
The Curiosity Rover is a mobile laboratory sent to Mars. When this 899 kg rover walks on Mars, it moves forward with a bang. Curiosity Rover made this discovery in May 2024. He was passing through some rocks and one of them suddenly broke into two pieces. The Geddes Vallis Channel, the place where this rock accidentally broke after being pressed, is full of such rocks.
‘Discovery like an oasis in the desert’
This discovery by Curiosity indicates that sulfur may be present in large quantities in its pure elemental form somewhere on Mars. Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, ‘Finding an area of rocks made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert.’ He said, ‘It should not be here, so now we have to explain it.’
Mars’ geographical history will be known
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 up, and sulfates are left behind. These sulfate minerals can tell us a lot about Mars. Such as Mars’ water history and how the water disappeared over time.
Pure sulfur is formed only under very limited conditions, and such conditions are not found in the area of Mars where Curiosity made this discovery. We don’t know much about the geological history of Mars. But the discovery of pure sulfur on the surface of Mars suggests that there is something very big there that we don’t know about.
