UAE, NASA missions find 'patchy' auroras in Mars atmosphere

The new aurora found by the team is formed when the solar wind directly impacts Mars' upper atmosphere and emits ultraviolet light as it slows down.

The United Arab Emirate's Mars Mission (EMM) and NASA's MAVEN probe have found "patchy" proton auroras in Mars' skies, providing new insights into the red planet's atmosphere.

An aurora is a natural light display in a planet's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions such as the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, seen from the Earth.

The new aurora found by the team is formed when the solar wind directly impacts Mars' upper atmosphere and emits ultraviolet light as it slows down.

It was discovered in snapshots of the dayside disk obtained by the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS), which observes the planet's upper atmosphere.

When the aurora occurs, small regions of the planet become much brighter, signifying intense localised energy in the atmosphere.

"Our discovery of these patchy proton aurora adds a new kind of event to the long list of those currently studied by EMM and challenges our existing views of how the proton aurora on Mars’ dayside are formed," said Hessa Al Matroushi, EMM's Science Lead.

“The EMM Hope probe has so far uncovered many unexpected phenomena that extend our understanding of Mars’ atmospheric and magnetospheric dynamics.”