Lights On Mars!

A NASA spacecraft has detected “northern lights” or mysterious aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere.

12:52 19 March 2015

Last year, a Nasa spacecraft that orbits the Venus has observed Christmas Lights for five days leading to 25 December last year. The mysterious aurora that was described as similar to “northern lights” reached deep into the Martian atmosphere. The Maven mission also discovered a dust of cloud at high altitude. The findings were presented at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. 

 

Maven mission was designed to obtain answers as to why the Red Planet lost most of its atmosphere, water, and other volatiles. 

 

Maven's chief scientist Prof Bruce Jakosky from the University of Colorado in Boulder, said: 

"The question is how much water has been lost into the crust, how much has been lost to space. How much CO2 has been lost to the crust, how much to space.”  

 

Meanwhile, the bright ultraviolet auroral glow seen in December, is believed to be caused by energetic particles such as electrons cascading into the atmosphere that causes the gas to glow. 

This is not the first time that an aurora was observed in Mars, however, this time, it appeared deep in the atmosphere, which is much deeper than at Earth or elsewhere on Mars.