NASA scientists say pure sulfur has been found on Mars for the first time after the Curiosity rover inadvertently discovered a cluster of yellow crystals when it drove over a rock. And it seems the area is full of it. It's an unexpected discovery: While sulfur-bearing minerals have been observed on the Red Planet, elemental sulfur has never been seen on its own there before. “It forms only in a narrow range of conditions that scientists have not associated with the history of this place,” according to NASA's Curiosity rover. .
On May 30, Curiosity broke through the rock as it drove through a region known as the Gediz Vallis channel, where similar rocks were seen everywhere. The channel is thought to have been carved by water and debris flows long ago. “Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
After spotting the yellow crystals, the team used a camera on Curiosity’s robotic arm to take a closer look at them. The rover took a sample of another rock nearby, as the chunks of rock it had shattered were too brittle to drill into. Curiosity is equipped with instruments that allow it to analyze the composition of rocks and soil, and NASA says its Alpha Particle x-ray Spectrometer (APXS) confirmed it had found elemental sulfur.
