September 12, 2024

Faith Freeman 

12th Grade

George Washington High School 

The Red Planet, also known as Mars, is where elemental sulfurs’ discovery takes place, prompting a series of questions such as how, why, and what the rover found that makes us curious and compels us to continue reading this article. On May 30, 2024, NASA’s Curiosity (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located in Pasadena, California, and run by Caltech, the organization that constructed Curiosity) ran over a rock that broke it open and revealed yellow crystals. Later, scientists identified what exactly these yellow crystals are, elemental sulfur. Elemental sulfur may sound intriguing, but what exactly does it contain? More specifically, why is this so significant to our lives? Let’s explore these questions in more detail.

Sulfur is the fifth most common element on Earth, but on Mars, it is an element that scientists never expected to find in its pure form. ‘Elemental sulfur’ refers to sulfur in its chemically pure form (such as sulfates, sulfites, or sulfur dioxide), not incorporated with other elements to form compounds. Although NASA has discovered sulfur within salts, discovering pure sulfur was a significant breakthrough. NASA did not just find a small amount of elemental sulfur—they discovered an entire field of its lookalikes. “Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” says Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Since sulfur usually forms in environments like Earth, finding elemental sulfur on Mars -- a planet so different from our own. is particularly shocking. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting”, said Curiosity’s project scientist Dr. Ashwin Vasavada. How did they know to choose this spot to find elemental sulfur? They didn’t! Curiosity made this discovery while off-roading in the Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down a portion of Mount Sharp, which is five kilometers (three miles) tall. The rover has been ascending Mount Sharp's base since 2014. One of the main reasons the science team wanted to explore this portion of Mars was because they had seen the channel years before the rover was sent. 

According to NASA, torrents of liquid water and debris formed the channel, leaving behind a ridge of rocks and sediment that stretches 3.2 km (two miles) down the mountainside beneath the channel.