{"id":12500,"date":"2024-11-18T18:02:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T22:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zobi.alcowep.com\/bourtagshdrevxnls658739\/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-last-look-at-mysterious-sulfur\/"},"modified":"2024-11-18T18:02:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T22:02:41","slug":"nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-last-look-at-mysterious-sulfur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zobi.alcowep.com\/bourtagshdrevxnls658739\/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-last-look-at-mysterious-sulfur\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars Rover Takes a Last Look at Mysterious Sulfur"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars Rover Takes a Last Look at Mysterious Sulfur<\/h2>\n

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5 min read<\/p>\n

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Use your mouse to explore this 360-degree view of Gediz Vallis channel, a region of Mars that NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover surveyed before heading west to new adventures. NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rover captured a 360-degree panorama before leaving Gediz Vallis channel, a feature it\u2019s been exploring for the past year.<\/em><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover is preparing for the next leg of its journey, a monthslong trek to a formation called the boxwork, a set of weblike patterns on Mars\u2019 surface that stretches for miles. It will soon leave behind Gediz Vallis channel, an area wrapped in mystery. How the channel formed so late during a transition to a drier climate is one big question for the science team. Another mystery is the field of white sulfur stones the rover discovered over the summer.<\/p>\n

Curiosity imaged the stones, along with features from inside the channel, in a 360-degree panorama before driving up to the western edge of the channel at the end of September.<\/p>\n

The rover is searching for evidence that ancient Mars had the right ingredients to support microbial life, if any formed billions of years ago, when the Red Planet held lakes and rivers. Located in the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain, Gediz Vallis channel may help tell a related story<\/a>: what the area was like as water was disappearing on Mars. Although older layers on the mountain had already formed in a dry climate, the channel suggests that water occasionally coursed through the area as the climate was changing.<\/p>\n

Scientists are still piecing together the processes that formed various features within the channel, including the debris mound nicknamed \u201cPinnacle Ridge,\u201d visible in the new 360-degree panorama. It appears that rivers, wet debris flows, and dry avalanches all left their mark. The science team is now constructing a timeline of events from Curiosity\u2019s observations.<\/p>\n

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\"Gediz<\/a><\/figure>
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NASA\u2019s Curiosity captured this panorama using its Mastcam while heading west away from Gediz Vallis channel on Nov. 2, 2024, the 4,352nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The Mars rover\u2019s tracks across the rocky terrain are visible at right.<\/div>\n
NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The science team is also trying to answer some big questions about the sprawling field of sulfur stones. Images of the area from NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO<\/a>) showed what looked like an unremarkable patch of light-colored terrain. It turns out that the sulfur stones were too small for MRO\u2019s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE<\/a>) to see, and Curiosity\u2019s team was intrigued to find them when the rover reached the patch. They were even more surprised after Curiosity rolled over one of the stones, crushing it to reveal yellow crystals<\/a> inside.<\/p>\n

Science instruments on the rover confirmed the stone was pure sulfur \u2014 something no mission has seen before on Mars. The team doesn\u2019t have a ready explanation for why the sulfur formed there; on Earth, it\u2019s associated with volcanoes and hot springs, and no evidence exists on Mount Sharp pointing to either of those causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at the sulfur field from every angle \u2014 from the top and the side \u2014 and looked for anything mixed with the sulfur that might give us clues as to how it formed. We\u2019ve gathered a ton of data, and now we have a fun puzzle to solve,\u201d said Curiosity\u2019s project scientist Ashwin Vasavada at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.<\/p>\n

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\"Gediz<\/a><\/figure>
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NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars rover captured this last look at a field of bright white sulfur stones on Oct. 11, before leaving Gediz Vallis channel. The field was where the rover made the first discovery of pure sulfur on Mars. Scientists are still unsure exactly why theses rocks formed here.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Spiderwebs on Mars<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Curiosity, which has traveled about 20 miles (33 kilometers) since landing in 2012, is now driving along the western edge of Gediz Vallis channel, gathering a few more panoramas to document the region before making tracks to the boxwork.<\/p>\n

Viewed by MRO, the boxwork looks like spiderwebs stretching across the surface. It\u2019s believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp\u2019s last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened. As portions of the rock eroded away, what remained were the minerals that had cemented themselves in the fractures, leaving the weblike boxwork.<\/p>\n

On Earth, boxwork formations have been seen on cliffsides and in caves. But Mount Sharp\u2019s boxwork structures stand apart from those both because they formed as water was disappearing from Mars and because they\u2019re so extensive, spanning an area of 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers). \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Scientists think that ancient groundwater formed this weblike pattern of ridges, called boxwork, that were captured by NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Dec. 10, 2006. The agency\u2019s Curiosity rover will study ridges similar to these up close in 2025.<\/div>\n
NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/University of Arizona<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
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\"Ceiling<\/figure>
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This weblike crystalline structure called boxwork is found in the ceiling of the Elk\u2019s Room, part of Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover is preparing for a journey to a boxwork formation that stretches for miles on Mars\u2019 surface.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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