this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Astronomy

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rock (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

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.