Auroras are natural light displays caused by disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind-jets of charged particles coming from the Sun, which create dynamic patterns of brilliant light in Earth’s sky. The magnetosphere is a region of space controlled by a planet’s magnetic field. Except for Mercury, almost all the planets in the Solar System have aurorae. However, things get a bit interesting on Mars. Unlike Earth, the Red Planet does not have a global magnetic field that plays an important role in the formation of auroras. There are spots of local, induced magnetism on Mars. According to the latest research, these localized magnetic fields interact with the solar wind in interesting ways to produce the discrete (or structured) ultraviolet auroras of Mars.
Scientists at the University of Iowa, US, know that discrete auroras form on Mars planetjust like Earth, But they didn’t know how they formed, especially in the absence of a global Magnetic Field, They now report that discrete auroras on the Red Planet are governed by local interactions between the solar wind and magnetic fields generated by the crust on Mars – in contrast to Earth, where auroras are visible when particles of the solar wind collide with Earth’s magnetosphere.
“We have the first detailed study looking at how the state of the solar wind affects auroras on Mars,” claimed physicist and astronomer Zachary Girzian University of Iowa,
“Now is a very useful and exciting time to research aurora on Mars. We have a database of discrete aurora observations from MAVEN, the first of its kind, allowing us to understand the basic characteristics of auroras for the first time,” Girazian said.
The researchers published their findings in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics After more than 200 observations of discrete auroras on Mars NASA– Led the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.
According to research, auroras on all other planets form as a result of complex interactions between their magnetic fields and solar winds. But Mars’s global magnetic field had weakened long ago, leaving behind only patches of preserved magnetism in the crust.