The United Arab Emirates Mars probe has captured never-before-imaged pictures of auroras around the Red Planet and the country’s space agency shared those photographs. The findings were not part of the mission’s agenda, however, they are still valuable to the scientific community.
The full set of data collected during these observations include far and extreme ultraviolet auroral emissions which have never been imaged before at Mars,” the Emirates Mars Mission said.
The findings, captured by Hope’s ultraviolet spectrometer instrument, would help scientists understand the interactions between solar radiation, Mars’ magnetic fields and the atmosphere.
Aurorae in Mars’ night side atmosphere are extremely rare to capture, however, Hope has a higher possibility of imaging the phenomenon than any other spacecraft because of its unique elliptical orbit around the planet. It observes the night side on every one of its 55-hour orbits of the planet.
Hessa Al Matroushi, science lead of the mission, said the findings are unique global snapshots of the discrete aurora and it is the first time such clear observations have been made globally and in these wavelengths.
“The implications for our understanding of Mars’ atmospheric and magnetospheric science are tremendous and provide new support to the theory that solar storms are not necessary to drive Mars’ aurora,” she said.
Hope captured these images shortly after it entered orbit around Mars in early 2021. Its mission is to study the upper and lower atmosphere of the planet. The Emirates Mars Mission team will reveal more findings in October.
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