On March 15, 2024, near the peak of the current solar cycle, the sun produces solar flares and accompanying coronal mass jets (CMEs), a huge explosion of gas and magnetic energy, with a large number of solar energy particles. This solar activity has resulted in a stunning glow throughout the solar system, including on Mars, where NASA's perseverance Mars rovers made history.
"This exciting discovery opens up new possibilities for Auroral research and confirms that future astronauts can see on the surface of Mars," said Elise Knutsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, Norway and lead author of the research on scientific progress.
On Earth, when sun particles interact with the global magnetic field, aurora forms, bringing them together when the poles collide with atmospheric gas and emit light. The most common color is green, which is the light emitted by excited oxygen atoms at a wavelength of 557.7 nanometers. For years, scientists believe that green aurora may also exist on Mars, but suggest that they are stupid and difficult to capture than the green aurora we see on Earth.
Because the Red Planet lacks a global magnetic field, Mars has different from the aurora we have on Earth. One of them is the solar particle (SEP) aurora, the Maven (Marine atmosphere and volatile evolution) mission discovered by NASA in 2014. These missions occur when super energy particles in the sun hit the Martian atmosphere, causing reactions throughout the night sky, causing reactions.
Although Maven observed Sep Auroras in the ultraviolet light of the orbit, this phenomenon was never observed from visible light on the ground. Since SEP usually occurs in solar storms, increasing during solar maximums, Knutsen and her team turn their eyes to capture visible images and visible images and spectra of Sep Aurora, which are captured from the surface of Mars at the peak of the sun's current solar cycle.
Through modeling, Knutsen and her team determined the optimal angles for the Persistent Rover’s Super Camera Spectrometer and Mastcam-Z camera to successfully observe the Sep Aurora. With this observation strategy, it all depends on timing and understanding of the CME.
"The trick is to choose a good CME that speeds up and injects many charged particles into the atmosphere of Mars," Nutson said.
This is the team at NASA’s Moon-to-Mars (M2M) Space Weather Analysis Office and the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The M2M team provided real-time analysis of CCMC to determine whether the initiation simulation of CMC could lead to the impact of NISA's nisa nisa AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS. When the simulation raises potential impact, the team sends an alert.
At the University of California, Berkeley, space physicist Christina Lee received an alert from the M2M office on March 15, 2024. Lee, a member of the Maven Mission team, takes the lead in space weather, is sure there is a famous solar storm heading towards the Red Planet that may arrive in a few days. She immediately issued a Mars space weather alert notification to the Mars mission currently operating.
"This allows Perseverance and Maven's scientific team to anticipate the impact of interplanetary CME and related SEPs," Lee said.
"When we see this power, we estimate it can trigger the light of the aurora to make our instruments detect it," Northon said.
A few days later, CME affected Mars, providing the rover with light-captured lights, indicating that Aurora's emission wavelength was exactly 557.7 nm. To confirm the existence of SEP during Aurora observations, the team has been looking for Maven’s Sep tool, which was also confirmed by data from ESA (European Space Agency) MARS Express Mission. Data from both tasks confirmed that the rover team had successfully glimpsed the phenomenon in a very narrow window of time.
"This is a great example. We all worked together quickly to facilitate this observation and are glad to finally have a peek at what the astronauts will be able to see one day."
By coordinating perseverance observations with the measurements of the Maven Sep instrument, the teams can help each other determine that the observed emission of 557.7 nm comes from solar particles. Since this is the same emission lines as the green aurora on Earth, future Mars astronauts will likely be able to see this type of aurora.
"Perseverance's observation of visible aurora confirms a new way to study these phenomena, which are complementary to what we can observe with Mars orbiting aircraft," said Katie Stack Morgan, a Perseverance project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern Southern California. “A better understanding of the aurora and the conditions around Mars that lead to its formation is especially important when we are ready to send human explorers there safely.”
Mars’ 2020 Perseverance Mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio and NASA’s Moon-to-Mars exploration methods, including the Moon’s Artemis mission, which will help prepare humans for exploring the Red Planet. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managed by Caltech for the institution, constructing and managing the operations of the lasting rovers.
The Maven mission is also part of NASA's portfolio of Mars Exploration Programs, led by Cu Boulder's Lasp. It is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, built and operated by Lockheed Martin Space, and managed with navigation and network support from NASA's JPL.
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By Willow Reed
University of Colorado Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
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Nancy N. Jones
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DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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