NASA's Curiosity rover uncovers 'mind-blowing' yellow sulfur crystals on Mars

[Judi Lynn]

Last Updated: Jul 20, 2024, 09:00:00 PM IST

NASA's Curiosity rover has stumbled upon an extraordinary find on Mars: pure sulfur crystals. The discovery occurred when the 1-ton rover accidentally cracked open a rock, revealing yellowish-green sulfur crystals that had never been seen before on the red planet.

“I think it’s the strangest find of the whole mission and the most unexpected,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “I have to say, there’s a lot of luck involved here. Not every rock has something interesting inside.”

Curiosity has been investigating the Gediz Vallis channel, a prominent geological feature on Mount Sharp. This channel, which appears to have been shaped 3 billion years ago by a combination of flowing water and debris, has been a focal point of the rover’s mission. The team had observed white rocks from a distance and directed Curiosity to capture detailed images.

On May 30, the team discovered a crushed rock within the rover’s wheel tracks. A closer examination revealed the sulfur crystals, described as “mind-blowing” by Vasavada. This find marks the first time pure sulfur has been detected on Mars.

Background on Previous Discoveries

Curiosity had previously identified sulfates, salts containing sulfur, on Mars. These sulfates are typically formed from the evaporation of water. However, the presence of pure sulfur is unprecedented. “No one had pure sulfur on their bingo card,” Vasavada noted.

More:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/nasas-curiosity-rover-uncovers-mind-blowing-yellow-sulfur-crystals-on-mars/articleshow/111889780.cms

[brush]

1. Wouldn't similar elements, except water, found on Earth, one of the small, rocky, inner planets, including Earth...

Mars, Venus and probably Mercury, wouldn't similar elements like this be found on them, as opposed to the gas giant outer planets (except maybe on their moons)?

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Elemental sulfur is usually associated with volcanoes and hot springs.

Mars appears to be long dead, in that regard.

[brush]

3. Long dead yes, but once active? I mean the stuff of what exists in the universe doesn't stop here and on Mars?

I know, who knows if the periodic table of elements will be expanded once we have the ability/technology to spend time and explore on other worlds?

[eppur_se_muova]

6. It is excruciatingly unlikely that any new stable elements will be added to the periodic table.

The heaviest nuclei decay almost exclusively by spontaneous fission. The heavier they are, the shorter their half-lives. Any heavier nuclei than those now known will have even shorter half-lives.

Their have been some suggestions, based on the 'nuclear shell model', that certain "magic numbers" of protons and neutrons might lead to more stable nuclei. The concept is sufficiently well-established that I've seen such suggestions in chemistry textbooks I've taught from, and in some SF stories as well. But "more stable" -- at least to most researchers -- means somewhat more stable than their neighbors, which have very short half-lives -- but such heavy nuclei are difficult to model with current nuclear theories, so the vote is not unanimous, and some optimists think such elements might be isolable. Personally, I think it's unlikely that we're going to find new stable elements beyond those already known. It would just require too many questionable assumptions to all line up favorably for such a search to succeed.

Discussions of stable vs unstable nuclei need to include the 'Liquid Drop Model' as well as the shell model. The LDM predicts very well which nuclei will be stable to beta-decay, with only a few exceptions due to the effects of "magic number" shells. (It's actually an interesting exercise to step through successive atomic mass numbers, A, and predict, for each one, what the atomic number(s) of the most stable nuclei will be (one for odd A, two for even A). The LDM alone usually leads to the correct prediction. Exceptions are instructive, as they always involve cases where the optimum balance between protons and neutrons is very close to a tipping point -- then, shell effects decide. Away from such tipping points, the magic numbers don't make much difference.) All sufficiently heavy nuclei spontaneously fission to form more stable nuclei; the LDM correctly predicts these decays will be more energetically "downhill" the larger the nucleus, and the trend is continuously downward as the mass number increases.

In principle, anything's possible, but some things are just much less likely than others.

[brush]

8. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. This has always been fascinating to me.

After reading your post I felt like I sat through a high-level physics class.

[jaxexpat]

4. But it could make a comeback, yet.

All it takes is chance and a rogue entity of sufficient mass moving through the neighborhood to rearrange inner-planetary orbits and, oh, chance, again.

[Backseat Driver]

5. Perhaps, and even a few unknown elements as we define them on our periodic table...Water being necessary for human

existence, is not in an of itself, an element - it is a bonded substance composed of hydrogen and oxygen - H2O that has various states, properties, and similarities. Likely that elements exist in various other states and properties as permited, known or yet unknown, or have influence on their orbits.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Clarification: ELEMENTAL sulfur is low-melting and volatile; it can be both melted and volatilized by steam.

Sulfur is well-known to sublime readily on heating. This is why finding elemental sulfur is so surprising -- unless it was recently deposited, surface deposits of sulfur should have had time to sublime away, even at the low temps of the Martian surface.

These crystals were found inside a rock; modeling how fast sulfur vapor could have diffused through the rock could give a (very rough) estimate of how old it was. An age of thousands of years might be reasonable; I doubt one of millions of years would be. So this could be a potential clue to Mars' (relatively) recent past.