The crystals were found afterNASA’s Curiosity Mars roverhappened 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