For just about 10 years, NASA’s four-wheeled robotic has been mountain climbing the foothills of Mount Sharp, a tall mountain on Mars that stands above an historic crater, uncovering mysteries with each and every of its layers. In its newest discovery, the Martian explorer stumbled upon a box of rocks product of natural sulfur, a chemical part that would grasp valuable clues to the Pink Planet’s watery previous.
The Interest rover just lately drove over a rock, unintentionally cracking it open. Inside of have been glossy yellow crystals, which scientists later decided to be elemental sulfur, NASA stated. Even if sulfur-based minerals (a mixture of sulfur with different fabrics) had been discovered on Mars sooner than, that is the primary discovery of rocks product of natural sulfur. And there is usually a complete bunch of them on Mars, however scientists aren’t positive how they shaped. 
Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS “Discovering a box of stones product of natural sulfur is like discovering an oasis within the wasteland,” Ashwin Vasavada, Interest’s challenge scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stated in a remark. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we now have to give an explanation for it.”
Natural sulfur is tasteless and odorless, and it’s naturally present in volcanic areas because of the oxidation of hydrogen-sulfide. However this actual area that Interest has been exploring has proven no indicators of previous volcanic job. Natural sulfur too can shape throughout the oxidation of lowered sulfur compounds by means of microbial job. If that’s the case, the invention of sulfur on Mars may well be helpful within the seek for historic microbial existence at the Pink Planet. 
The Interest rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The Interest rover has been exploring Gediz Vallis, a winding channel that can had been carved out by means of an historic river that left a 2-mile path of boulders and sediment. Through exploring this area, the rover is amassing clues for puts within the planet’s historic terrain that may have supplied the vitamins wanted for microbial existence to most likely shape on Mars.
Interest may just now not clutch a pattern of the sulfur rocks as a result of they have been too small and brittle, but it surely did in finding a big rock close by that the group nicknamed “Mammoth Lakes.” The rover used a drill hooked up on the finish of its 7-foot (2-meter) robot arm to make a hollow within the rock and grabbed samples that may be analyzed by means of on-board tools throughout the rover’s stomach. “Finding ordinary and sudden issues is what makes planetary exploration so thrilling,” Vasavada stated. Extra: Issues You Didn’t Know About NASA’s Mars Rovers
