NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSThis 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