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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rock

By NASA
July 18, 2024 in NASA

https://www.aliensandspace.com/topic/13219-nasa%E2%80%99s-curiosity-rover-discovers-a-surprise-in-a-martian-rock/

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

On Mars these crystals are elemental sulfur — These yellow crystals were revealed after NASA’s Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30. Using an instrument on the rover’s arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur — and it’s the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A Mars rock nicknamed “Snow Lake” — NASA’s Curiosity captured this close-up image of a rock nicknamed “Snow Lake” on June 8, 2024, the 4,209th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Nine days earlier, the rover had crushed a similar-looking rock and revealed crystalline textures — and elemental sulfur — inside.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.

Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven’t associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it — an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.

Pan around this 360-degree video to explore Gediz Vallis channel, the location where NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover discovered sulfur crystals and drilled its 41st rock sample. The images that make up this mosaic were captured by the rover’s MastCam in June. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”

It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity’s mission is to study where and when the planet’s ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Floods and Avalanches

Spotted from space years before Curiosity’s launch, Gediz Vallis channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 2 miles down the mountainside below the channel. The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there’s still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.

Since Curiosity’s arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel’s floor here. The latest clues from Curiosity suggest both played a role: some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.

Mars rocks that show a pale color near their edges. These rings, also calle

While exploring Gediz Vallis channel in May, NASA’s Curiosity captured this image of rocks that show a pale color near their edges. These rings, also called halos, resemble markings seen on Earth when groundwater leaks into rocks along fractures, causing chemical reactions that change the color.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Those conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: Whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.

Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white “halo” shapes into some of the rocks. Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.

“This was not a quiet period on Mars,” said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. “There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows.”

A Hole in 41

All this evidence of water continues to tell a more complex story than the team’s early expectations, and they’ve been eager to take a rock sample from the channel in order to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.

While the sulfur rocks were too small and brittle to be sampled with the drill, a large rock nicknamed “Mammoth Lakes” was spotted nearby. Rover engineers had to search for a part of the rock that would allow safe drilling and find a parking spot on the loose, sloping surface.

After Curiosity bored its 41st hole using the powerful drill at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist trickled the powderized rock into instruments inside its belly for further analysis so that scientists can determine what materials the rock is made of.

Curiosity has since driven away from Mammoth Lakes and is now off to see what other surprises are waiting to be discovered within the channel.

More About the Mission

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about Curiosity, visit:

science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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Jul 18, 2024

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  A scan across a panorama captured by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows the steepness of the terrain leading to the rim of Jezero Crater. The rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system took the images that make up this view on Dec. 5. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Since landing at Jezero in February 2021, Perseverance has completed four science campaigns: the “Crater Floor,” “Fan Front,” “Upper Fan,” and “Margin Unit.” The science team is calling Perseverance’s fifth campaign the “Northern Rim” because its route covers the northern part of the southwestern section of Jezero’s rim. Over the first year of the Northern Rim campaign, the rover is expected to visit as many as four sites of geologic interest, take several samples, and drive about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers).
  “The Northern Rim campaign brings us completely new scientific riches as Perseverance roves into fundamentally new geology,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena. “It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim after impact.”
  This animation shows the position of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover as of Dec. 4, 2024, the 1,347th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, along with the proposed route of the mission’s fifth science campaign, dubbed Northern Rim, over the next several years. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/University of Arizona “These rocks represent pieces of early Martian crust and are among the oldest rocks found anywhere in the solar system. Investigating them could help us understand what Mars — and our own planet — may have looked like in the beginning,” Farley added.
  First Stop: ‘Witch Hazel Hill’
  With Lookout Hill in its rearview mirror, Perseverance is headed to a scientifically significant rocky outcrop about 1,500 feet (450 meters) down the other side of the rim that the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.”
  “The campaign starts off with a bang because Witch Hazel Hill represents over 330 feet of layered outcrop, where each layer is like a page in the book of Martian history. As we drive down the hill, we will be going back in time, investigating the ancient environments of Mars recorded in the crater rim,” said Candice Bedford, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University in West Layfette, Indiana. “Then, after a steep descent, we take our first turns of the wheel away from the crater rim toward ‘Lac de Charmes,’ about 2 miles south.”
  Lac de Charmes intrigues the science team because, being located on the plains beyond the rim, it is less likely to have been significantly affected by the formation of Jezero Crater.
  After leaving Lac de Charmes, the rover will traverse about a mile (1.6 kilometers) back to the rim to investigate a stunning outcrop of large blocks known as megabreccia. These blocks may represent ancient bedrock broken up during the Isidis impact, a planet-altering event that likely excavated deep into the Martian crust as it created an impact basin some 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) wide, 3.9 billion years in the past.
  More About Perseverance
  A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
  NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
  The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
  NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
  For more about Perseverance:
  https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
  News Media Contacts
  DC Agle
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
  818-393-9011
  agle@jpl.nasa.gov
  Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
  NASA Headquarters, Washington
  202-358-1600
  karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
  2024-174
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  Last Updated Dec 12, 2024 Related Terms
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