The UAE’s Hope spacecraft has discovered a new type of aurora on Mars.
The Emirates Mars Mission released new images of Mars discovery raising new questions about the interactions between Mars’ atmosphere, the planet’s magnetic fields and the solar wind.
Scientists dubbed it the ‘sinuous discrete aurora’, a huge worm-like aurora that extends halfway around the planet.
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Emirates Mars Mission Science lead Hessa Al Matroushi said, “When we first imaged Mars’ discrete aurora shortly after the Hope probe arrived at Mars in 2021, we knew we had unveiled a new potential to make observations never before possible on this scale, and we took the decision to increase our focus on these auroras.”
She added: “We can obtain nearly whole-disk, synoptic snapshots of the atmosphere to investigate atmospheric phenomena and interactions. It means we are seeing discrete auroral effects on a massive scale and in ways we never anticipated.”
The sinuous discrete aurora is made up of long worm-like streaks of energised electron emissions in the upper atmosphere which extend many thousands of kilometres, stretching from the day side into the night side of Mars.
Observations of a stunning new type of Martian aurora by EMM’s Hope probe open up new areas for investigating Mars' highly dynamic plasma environment. pic.twitter.com/VBn6FLRbtH
— Hope Mars Mission (@HopeMarsMission) April 27, 2022
