For the last 10 months , NASA ’s wonder has been investigating a region of Mount Sharp that is of mellow interest . It has signs of a violent watery preceding and chemic analytic thinking has revealed the bearing of many mineral including sulphate . As the wanderer moved about it unexpectedly snap open a rock , and inside it saw pure sulfur crystals . unadulterated atomic number 16 had never been seen before on Mars .
While sulfate have sulfur , there is not a clean relationship between the constitution of those atom and the pure vitreous silica . Elemental sulfur crystals forge only in a narrow range of conditions . And none of those have been expected for this region .
“ come up a field of stone made of everlasting sulphur is like finding an oasis in the desert , ” Curiosity ’s project scientist , Ashwin Vasavada of NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , state in astatement . “ It should n’t be there , so now we have to excuse it . discover foreign and unexpected thing is what makes global exploration so exciting . ”
The part Curiosity is exploring is know as the Gediz Vallis channel . It is a groove across Mount Sharp that has been an area of interest since long before the wanderer began climbing the relief in 2014 . From orbit , scientist could see the presence of gravid mounds of rubble . But the causal agent of them was not apparent . Was it landslides or ancient floodwaters that shift the material along the TV channel ?
wonder has been able to provide an reply . A routine of column A and a bit of column B. Rocks shifted by water are smoother and round . Those shifted by juiceless avalanches are angular and penetrative . Both type of rocks are get among the knoll .
“ 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 , orMastcam . “ There was an exciting amount of activity here . We ’re looking at multiple flows down the channel , including industrious flood tide and boulder - rich stream . ”
curio carry on to look into the Gediz Valley . When even just ramble about uncover alone features , we can be very excited about the skill that is being pursue here .
