Aurorae spotted on Mars
Posted: Tue, Dec 13, 2005, 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT)
A reanalysis of data from a NASA mission has turned up evidence of hundreds of auroral events at Mars, scientists said Monday. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley said that they detected 13,000 signals in data from an electron reflectometer instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft; those signals corresponded to hundreds of separate aurorae. Unlike the Earth, where aurorae are linked to the planet's magnetic field, Martian aurorae are linked to patches of strong magnetic fields in the crust of the planet's southern hemisphere, and are likely visible only at ultraviolet wavelengths. The scientists decided to study six years' worth of MGS data after an instrument on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft detected an ultraviolet flash earlier this year; scientists linked that flash to an aurora.
A reanalysis of data from a NASA mission has turned up evidence of hundreds of auroral events at Mars, scientists said Monday. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley said that they detected 13,000 signals in data from an electron reflectometer instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft; those signals corresponded to hundreds of separate aurorae. Unlike the Earth, where aurorae are linked to the planet's magnetic field, Martian aurorae are linked to patches of strong magnetic fields in the crust of the planet's southern hemisphere, and are likely visible only at ultraviolet wavelengths. The scientists decided to study six years' worth of MGS data after an instrument on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft detected an ultraviolet flash earlier this year; scientists linked that flash to an aurora.
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