This discovery is another piece of the puzzle of the Red Planet’s past history.
We’ve found a lot of surprises on Mars lately, the latest being some unexpected “popcorn” shaped rocks. However, this latest finding should be included in another list of what it could mean for the future. Curiosity came across a rock that it accidentally opened. What it found inside was something unusual On the red planet.
Pure sulfur. exactly like The agency explained According to a statement, the robot’s passage through the rock split it into two pieces. To give an idea, Curiosity weighs about 900 kilograms, so the incident is not unreasonable. Inside the Martian rock, a yellow object was revealed that NASA identified as sulfur on the Red Planet, and moreover, in its pure elemental form.
pocket, key The place where the lucky accident happened is Gediz Valis CanalIt is an area filled with rocks that look suspiciously like sulfur before they are crushed by chance, indicating that elemental sulfur may be nearby.
according to The scientist Ashwin Vasavada explained From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Finding a field of rocks made of pure sulfur 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.”
What can it tell us? Sulfates are salts that form when sulfur, in its compound form, mixes with other minerals in water, the researchers say. Then, as the water evaporates, the minerals mix and dry out, leaving sulfates behind. So sulfate minerals can tell us a lot about Mars, from the history of its water to how it has eroded over time.
Mars gibberish. It turns out we don’t have much history to go by after the discovery, mainly because we’re just beginning to understand the history of Mars. Pure sulfur only forms under a very limited set of conditions, which aren’t known to have occurred in the region of Mars where Curiosity discovered it, although it looks like it might.
What seems clear, however, is that once we discover pure sulfur floating on the surface of Mars, it is very likely that there is something else there that we do not yet know about. We are talking about an element essential to all life, an element that is absorbed in the form of sulfur and used to produce two essential amino acids that living organisms need to make proteins.
next step. the NASA explains in the statement: They will now focus on the area where the accident occurred, while collecting data on the stone fragment. In addition, Gediz Vallis is an area rich in Martian history, an ancient waterway whose rocks now bear the imprint of the ancient river that once flowed over it, billions of years ago, so it is plausible that the area holds more surprises for us. We are inside the rocky floor of the channel.
Image | Bowl
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