Green haze on Mars: NASA predicts Martian auroras for first time, Perseverance rover captures it
Auroras visible to the naked eye on Mars for the first time: NASA's Perseverance rover has captured a green aurora on Mars. Science & Tech Trending
NASA's Perseverance rover has captured auroras on Mars in wavelengths visible to the naked eye. This is the first time such an aurora was seen on the red planet. NASA stated that the aurora was green in colour and occurred on March 18, 2024. The Sun released a chunk of plasma toward Mars, which resulted in an auroral display across the Martian sky.
NASA scientists got the Perseverance rover to look upwards, thus capturing visible aurora on Mars for the first time. Auroras have been seen on the red planet before as well, but they have all been in ultraviolet wavelengths. Perseverance’s SuperCam spectrometer and Mastcam-Z camera were deployed to capture the aurora that was similar to what humans see on Earth.
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The greenish Martian aurora has been mentioned in a new paper published in the journal Science on Wednesday (May 14).
Solar storms cause auroras
On Earth, auroras happen when a highly active sun spews plasma and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) towards Earth. The solar particles interact with the magnetic field and the atmosphere, triggering a beautiful display of auroras, mostly in the polar regions.
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Scientists keep an eye on the Sun and have methods to estimate when the solar particles will impact Earth. But for Mars, predicting auroras is hard. Elise Knutsen, a researcher at the University of Oslo and lead author of told Gizmodo, “We spent a lot of time developing the exact instrument settings, and fine-tuning the timing of our observations.”
"It took three unsuccessful attempts" before the scientists "got it right". "But when we did, it appeared exactly as we had imagined it; as a diffuse green haze, uniform in all directions.”
NASA scientists predicted aurora on Mars for first time
Knutsen said the team observed a CME travelling towards Mars in March 2024. It decided to investigate whether it would lead to an aurora. The researchers used simulations published online by NASA’s Community Coordinated Modeling Center to evaluate the intensity of the expected aurora and if Perseverance would be able to pick it up. It worked on the fourth attempt, and the rover captured Mars' glowing skies for the first time ever.
