Khaberni - The Perseverance vehicle, belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration "NASA", has obtained evidence that the Martian atmosphere is electrically active, having detected electrical discharges, which one scientist named "miniature lightning".
This lightning is mostly associated with dust towers that regularly shoot up above the planet's surface. Researchers said the six-wheeled rover, which has been exploring Mars since 2021 at a site called Jezero Crater in its northern hemisphere, captured these electrical discharges in audio and electromagnetic recordings through a remote sensing tool.
This is the first documentation of electrical activity in the thin Martian atmosphere, said planetary scientist Baptiste Chide from the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology in France, who is the lead author of the study published today Wednesday, in the journal Nature. "These discharges represent a significant discovery, and have direct implications regarding the chemistry of Mars' atmosphere, climate, habitability, and the future of robotic and human exploration," he stated.
And planetary scientist and co-author of the study Ralph Lorenz from the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland said: "We did not observe lightning in the common definition. It was a small spark, maybe a few millimeters in length, and it was not real lightning."
