Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Reply
A Mars rover has accidentally stumbled upon an extraordinary substance that “shouldn’t be there” and it’s left experts stunned.
The Mars Curiosity rover has been roaming the Red Planet since 2011 when it was launched on a mission to investigate the climate and geology.
Exploring the Gale crater and Mount Sharp just south of the Martian equator, the rover’s goal was to determine whether the region had environmental conditions that could support life.
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After 13 years of exploration, the rover has now made an accidental discovery that has stunned scientists.
While wandering Mount Sharp, which is a mountain that rises around 3.4 miles above the Gale crater, the rover happened upon a new revelation while driving over a rock.
The rock cracked open under the weight and revealed yellow sulpur crystals hidden inside.
In a statement, scientist Ashwin Vasavada NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained why the discovery is so exciting, saying: “Finding a field of stones made of pure sulphur is like finding an oasis in the desert.
“It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it.
“Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
While the area that the rover has been exploring since October 2023 has plenty of sulphates, this particular rock that the rover opened is different from the rest.
The others are a mix of sulphur and other materials but this one is pure sulphur and experts are trying to work out how this is possible.
Pure sulphur only forms in with a narrow set of conditions and circumstances, none of which researchers thought to be in the Mount Sharp region.
But now the rover has stumbled upon an entire field of rocks that appear similar to one that it cracked.
Curiosity has been ascending the mountain since 2014 and the area that the rocks are in is called the Gediz Vallis channel, which is a groove that winds down part of Mount Sharp.
The rocks don’t appear to belong in the area and scientists think that it could be possible that they were carried there by floodwaters a long time ago.
Now a team, including Vasavanda, are working to figure out how the unexplained phenomenon has occurred and they hope to uncover more secrets about the Red Planet.
In recent years, researchers have set their sights on Mars as a possible planet for human exploration.
Billionaire Elon Musk even parted ways with all of his property in a bid to fund a colony on Mars that could one day house humans.
