SoylentNews

Phoenix666 writes:

SciTechDaily:

In a new study, the physicists studied discrete aurora, a light-in-the-sky phenomenon that occurs predominantly during the night in the red planet's southern hemisphere. While scientists have known about discrete aurora on Mars–which also occur on Earth—they were mystified as to how they formed. That's because Mars does not have a global magnetic field like Earth, which is a main trigger for aurora, also called the northern and southern lights on our planet.

Instead, the physicists report, discrete aurora on Mars are governed by the interaction between the solar wind—the constant jet of charged particles from the sun—and magnetic fields generated by the crust at southern latitudes on Mars. It's the nature of this localized interaction between the solar wind and the crustal magnetic fields that leads to discrete aurora, the scientists discovered.

The findings come from more than 200 observations of discrete aurora on Mars by the NASA-led Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft.

Reference: "Discrete Aurora at Mars: Dependence on Upstream Solar Wind Conditions" by Z. Girazian, N. M. Schneider, Z. Milby, X. Fang, J. Halekas, T. Weber, S. K. Jain, J.-C. Gérard, L. Soret, J. Deighan and C. O. Lee, 27 March 2022, JGR: Space Physics. DOI: 10.1029/2021JA030238

Original Submission