NASA’s Curiosity Rover Makes ‘Mind-Blowing’ Discovery on Mars

NASA 's Curiosity Rover has recently made a "groundbreaking" discovery – quite literally – on the surface of Mars , as it found yellow crystals made of pure sulfur inside a cracked open rock.

Knewz.com has learned that while the rover is exploring a sulfate-rich region of the Red Planet , the occurrence of pure sulfur on the Martian surface was previously unheard of.

The Curiosity Rover made the discovery when it cracked open a rock while driving over it on May 30, during an investigation into a region known as the Gediz Vallis channel, a winding groove that appears to have been created 3 billion years ago by a mix of flowing water and debris.

The crushed rock with the "mind-blowing" find appeared in a picture of the landscape captured by the rover.

NASA stated in a press release that a rock with pure sulfur crystals inside can form "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."

Notably, the Curiosity Rover had already found sulfates – a kind of salt that contains sulfur and is left behind when water evaporates – on the surface of Mars, especially in the Gediz Vallis channel region.

The rover had also found gypsum, or calcium sulfate, in the cracks of the Martian surface left behind by the ancient groundwater network.

However, the discovery of pure sulfur on Mars is not something Curiosity scientists had anticipated.

Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California , the project scientist of the Curiosity Rover, said in a statement via the press release, "Finding a field of stones 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."

Briony Horgan, co-investigator on the Perseverance rover mission and professor of planetary science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana , also commented on the Curiosity Rover' find in a statement to CNN :

"My jaw dropped when I saw the image of the sulfur... Pure elemental sulfur is a very weird finding because on Earth we mostly find it in places like hydrothermal vents. Think Yellowstone ! So it’s a big mystery to me as to how this rock formed in Mt. Sharp [the 3-mile tall Martian mountain where the Gediz Vallis channel is located]."

It is worth noting that pure sulfur is naturally formed on Earth as a result of volcanic processes and can usually be found in natural hot or cold springs.

Curiosity scientists have been trying to further analyze and study the rocks found in the Gediz Vallis channel and finally got their chance on June 18.

While most of the rocks found in the region are small and brittle, they found one big enough to be sampled with the powerful drill at the end of the rover's 7-foot robotic arm.

The large rock has been nicknamed "Mammoth Lakes," and according to Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an analysis of the rock's dust has revealed a larger variety of minerals than ever seen before during the mission.

The Curiosity Rover is currently in the process of carrying out further investigation in the Gediz Vallis channel, according to NASA's press release .