CNN —The Curiosity rover has made its most unusual find to date on Mars: rocks made of pure sulfur. “I think it’s the strangest find of the whole mission and the most unexpected,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Previously, while exploring Mars, NASA’s Spirit rover broke one of its wheels and had to drag it along while using the other five to drive backward. And Vasavada says it’s what inspired the team to “look behind” the Curiosity rover — otherwise they wouldn’t have seen the crushed sulfur. To determine what process formed the sulfur rocks, the team considered nearby bedrock instead.

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Persons: ”, Ashwin Vasavada, “, Sharp, White, Vasavada, ” Vasavada, Briony Horgan, Curiosity, Mount Sharp, Becky Williams, Gediz, “ It’s, we’re, ” Curiosity’s, “ I’m Organizations: CNN, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, NASA, Caltech, Mars, NASA SVS, Spirit, Purdue University, Planetary Science Institute, Curiosity’s Locations: Pasadena , California, ”, Mars, West Lafayette , Indiana, Mt, Gediz, Gale, Tucson , Arizona