Perseverance takes the first picture of a visible Martian aurora
SMRTR summary
A faint, green glow wreathing the Martian horizon has finally been captured on camera. The Perseverance rover snapped the first-ever image of a visible aurora on Mars, offering a tantalizing preview of what future astronauts might witness.
"It would be a dull or dim green glow to astronauts' eyes," says Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist at Purdue University.
Unlike Earth's auroras, concentrated near the poles by our global magnetic field, Martian light shows can appear anywhere due to patchy magnetization in the planet's crust. This makes them dimmer but potentially more widespread.
The historic image, taken in March 2024, was prompted by an incoming coronal mass ejection from the sun. While fuzzy due to camera limitations, it marks a significant step in understanding Mars' atmospheric phenomena and preparing for human exploration.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Science News.
Read the original article