NASA scientists say natural sulfur has been discovered on Mars for the primary time after the Interest rover inadvertently exposed a cluster of yellow crystals when it drove over a rock. And it seems like the world is full of it. It’s an surprising discovery — whilst minerals containing sulfur were noticed at the Crimson Planet, elemental sulfur by itself hasn’t ever been noticed there ahead of. “It paperwork in just a slim vary of prerequisites that scientists haven’t related to the historical past of this location,” in line with NASA.
Interest cracked open the rock on Would possibly 30 whilst riding in a area referred to as the Gediz Vallis channel, the place identical rocks had been noticed throughout. The channel is believed to were carved by means of water and particles flows way back. “Discovering a box of stones fabricated from natural sulfur is like discovering an oasis within the wilderness,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Interest’s mission scientist. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we’ve got to provide an explanation for it. Finding ordinary and surprising issues is what makes planetary exploration so thrilling.”
After recognizing the yellow crystals, the workforce later used a digicam on Interest’s robot arm to take a more in-depth glance. The rover then took a pattern from a distinct rock within sight, because the items of the rock it had smashed had been too brittle for drilling. Interest is provided with tools that permit it to research the composition of rocks and soil, and NASA says its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) showed it had discovered elemental sulfur.
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