The Red Planet Appears to Put On Faint Light Shows

Auroras similar to the ones that cast great curtains of spectral light over Earth’s polar regions have been found on Mars, physicists at UC Berkeley said.

Researchers analyzing six years of data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft say they have found evidence of hundreds of auroras flashing across the barren landscape.

The discovery is a surprise because Mars does not have a planet-wide magnetic field like the one that blankets Earth.

Auroras occur on Earth when charged particles from the sun strike the planet’s protective magnetic field, which is generated by its revolving liquid metal core. The light shows can be seen from Alaska to the northern continental United States.

Mars, however, lost its global magnetic field eons ago when its core solidified. All that’s left of the magnetic field are remnants in the Martian crust, which is why the auroras on Mars are much weaker, UC Berkeley physicist David A. Brain said.

“The fact that we see auroras [on Mars] as often as we do is amazing,” said Brain, the primary author of a paper on the phenomenon that will be published in Geophysical Research Letters.

In ancient times, the auroras might have been nearly as colorful as those on Earth.

Today, they only appear in the ultraviolet, meaning they would not be visible to future astronauts without the use of special goggles.