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NASA’s Perseverance rover recently took the first ever photos of the aurora borealis on Mars from the surface of the planet.
The aurorae were photographed in March 2024, after a stream of solar particles from a coronal mass ejection collided with the Red Planet’s magnetic field. This excited the gas in the planet’s thin atmosphere, which began to emit light, similar to the way the northern lights appear on Earth.
It is known that several types of aurorae can occur on Mars. Some of them can cover the entire planet. So far, however, they have been observed in wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that are invisible to the naked eye, mostly in the form of ultraviolet light.
The visible aurora on Mars, captured by Perseverance, is the first such phenomenon in the solar system to be recorded using only visible wavelengths of light. According to the researchers, under favorable circumstances, the aurorae from the surface of the Red Planet will someday can be observed by astronauts.
For a long time, scientists believed that Mars does not produce visible auroras due to the extreme scattering of the atmosphere and the lack of a full-fledged magnetic field. Analysis of the green hues of the aurorae showed that the light was emitted by excited oxygen molecules, which make up about 0.13% of the planet’s atmosphere. The low concentration of the gas combined with the high level of dust in the atmosphere is the reason why the light from the aurora is barely visible in the photo.
The aurorae in the photo could be seen only after removing the light from Mars’ largest satellite, Phobos. The researchers note that more powerful solar winds and lower dust concentrations in the atmosphere will allow for naked-eye viewing of the aurorae on Mars in the future.
At night, another type of green, aurora-like light — known as glow air – can occur near the planet’s poles and may become visible to future astronauts. This happens when oxygen molecules ionized by a stream of solar particles cool and recombine, releasing excess energy.
Auroras also occur on other planets. However, on Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, for example, these phenomena occur in parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that are invisible to the naked eye, including ultraviolet, infrared, and X-rays. However, some planets, such as Jupiter, can also experience extremely powerful auroras due to other phenomena, including magnetic anomalies caused by these planets’ giant moons.
The results of the study were published in the journal Science Advances
Source: LiveScience
