July 21, 2024 – 5:10 PM
NASA's Curiosity rover has found yellow crystals of the element sulfur. This is the first time the mineral has been found in its pure form on the surface of Mars. NASA in its statement.
Curiosity found the cluster of fragments, about 13 centimeters in diameter, on June 7, the mission’s 428th sol. The discovery is named after Convey Lake in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The image from the rover’s MastCam imager has been refined to match what the human eye sees on Earth.
The crystals were found after Curiosity accidentally drove into the rock and shattered it a few days earlier on May 30. The rover later determined the rock's composition using the instrument at the end of its robotic arm, the X-ray alpha particle spectrometer.
Scientists have already seen several types of sulfur on the surface of Mars; the area where Curiosity found this rock is known to be rich in sulfates. These are sulfur-based salts left behind when water dried up in this part of the Red Planet billions of years ago. It’s not clear what, if any, relationship the sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
