An extraordinary phenomenon taking over the Red Planet.
NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission and the United Arab Emirates’ Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) revealed combined observations of proton aurora at Mars. It turns out that aurora can actually get patchy over the Martian atmosphere.
The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The United Arab Emirates’ EMM found that fine-scale structures covered the proton aurora during the entire day side of Mars.
MAVEN discovered proton aurora in 2018. They form when the solar wind interacts with the upper atmosphere of Mars. Previously, MAVEN and ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Mars Express mission revealed through regular observations that this type of aurora was evenly distributed across the Martian hemisphere.
