NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
This close-up view shows fragments of sulfur crystals — the first ever seen on the Red Planet. The crystals were found after NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover happened to drive over a rock and crush it on May 30, 2024. Several days later, Curiosity used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to take this image.
A recent paper in Science suggests that the sulfur formed when magma deep below the surface released fluids or gases that deposited sulfur on the Red Planet’s surface about 3 billion years ago.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS