Mars rover discovered an extraordinary substance that ‘shouldn’t be there’ by accident

NASA's Curiosity Rover picked up a 'surprise' substance on Mars which 'shouldn't be there'.

Before we get started though, it's got nothing to do with aliens - sorry.

But that doesn't mean that the space world isn't excited by what's been discovered.

Since 2012, NASA's rover has been exploring the planet, looking for something cool, one would assume.

And on 30 May, they found something.

The Mars rover was actually sent to explore an area called the Gale Crater, referred to as 'a large impact basin with a massive, layered mountain in the middle'.

It has since been used to analyse soil and rocks, search for signs of past life and most importantly to study the planet's climate and geology for future human missions.

The main goal is to explore the planet's potential to support life.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover made the discovery (NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development)

Along the way, however, it seems that the rover has picked up a very surprising substance, referred to as 'elemental or pure sulfur' - and they found an 'entire field' of it too.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained: "Assuming the hypothesis is correct, these minerals offer tantalising clues as to how – and why – the Red Planet’s climate changed from being more Earth-like to the frozen desert it is today."

“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it.”

Discovering the unexpected 'is what makes planetary exploration so exciting', he added.

Here is what the rover found. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Carl D. Hoff, a professor in the Department of Chemistry in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, who has worked with sulfur numerous times, said as per the University of Miami: “It could even be the case that it came from a meteorite shower; elemental sulfur is often found in rocks from meteors.

“Flexibility and versatility are what sulfur brings to the table."

Hoff says that sulfur is extremely important for all living things as 'it is in several key proteins'.

"It binds important metals like molybdenum in the liver enzyme xanthine oxidase and the nitrogenase enzyme in the roots of plants." he adds.

“Oxygen is directly above sulfur in the periodic table, and O is ‘hard’ as opposed to S being ‘soft'."

As to it's relationships regarding other minerals nearby, NASA says it 'isn't clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area'.