NASA’s Curiosity rover has found “glimmering sulfur crystals” on Mars after the rover rolled over a rock.
In line with the Canadian House Company, because the Curiosity rover was persevering with its climb of Mount Sharp, a 5-kilometre-tall mountain, on Could thirtieth of this yr, it rolled over a rock and cracked it open.
Upon examination with the Canadian constructed Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) the instrument indicated the rocks contained “pure, elemental sulfur,” which was sudden.
The CSA states that the APXS is “mounted on Curiosity’s robotic arm” and that “the Canadian instrument bombarded the sulfur with X-rays and alpha particles, revealing their true elemental nature.”
When NASA launched the findings in mid-July they said, “Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a area of Mars wealthy with sulfates, a form of salt that incorporates sulfur and kinds as water evaporates. However the place previous detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in different phrases, a mixture of sulfur and different supplies — the rock Curiosity lately cracked open is product of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the basic sulfur has to different sulfur-based minerals within the space.”
The CSA added that “Sulfur kinds below very particular circumstances, so discovering it in pure, elemental type suggests Mars might have skilled environments we by no means imagined. This discovery provides one other puzzle piece to the thriller of whether or not Mars might have supported life in its historic previous.”
