Scientists discover bizarre 'worm-like' aurora stretching halfway across Mars

By Brandon Specktor published about 3 hours ago

Nobody can explain why this 'sinuous discrete aurora' happened.



An artist's impression of the new sinuous discrete aurora over Mars. (Image credit: Emirates Mars Mission)

On clear Martian nights, long, snake-like ribbons of light may streak through the sky for thousands of miles. It's a pretty sight, according to new observations from the United Arab Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) — and it represents a strange new type of aurora never seen before on any planet.

Auroras — also known on Earth as the southern or northern lights — occur when charged particles from solar wind collide with molecules in a planet's atmosphere. Several different types of auroras have been detected on Mars, including planet-wide "diffuse auroras," which glow faintly through the entire Martian sky during intense solar storms, as well as patchy "discrete auroras," which only glow above certain spots of Martian crust thought to contain magnetized minerals, according to EMM.

This new type of aurora — which EMM researchers dubbed a "sinuous discrete aurora" — seems to be a strange mishmash of the others, the researchers said.

Visible only above certain tracts of the Martian landscape, the new type of aurora appeared during a recent solar storm when charged electrons swept over the Red Planet's thin atmosphere. As those particles surged down magnetic field lines in the atmosphere, long tendrils of light zigzagged across the sky from the planet's dayside to its nightside, spanning half of the planet's diameter, the EMM researchers said in an emailed statement.

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