Orbiters and rovers on Mars have given planetary scientists on the Earth the chance to observe and track a huge solar storm that recently erupted on the Red Planet.
The solar storm produced aurorae across Mars and provided scientists with information on how much radiation future astronauts might encounter on the Red Planet.
As our Sun reaches solar maximum – the peak of activity during its 11-year solar cycle – increased solar activity has increased the regularity and strength of aurora displays on Earth (as seen during the aurora display of 10 May 2024).
But Earth isn’t the only planet that experiences the aurora.
Orbiters and rovers on Mars have been giving planetary scientists amazing views of the effects of solar flares and coronal mass ejections on the Red Planet.
How the Mars solar storm developed
On 20 May 2024, an X12 solar flare – X-class are the strongest kind of solar flare – produced x-rays and gamma rays that hit Mars, while a coronal mass ejection launched a solar wind – a dream of charged particles – at the planet.
This produced an incredible solar storm that was witnessed by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars.
In the images above, the specks are caused by charged particles from the solar storm hitting Curiosity’s camera.
As well as this, NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter’s orientation camera experienced a momentary blackout during the storm.
The Mars solar storm was tracked by the Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
NASA says that, if astronauts had been standing next to Curiosity rover at the time, they would have received a dose of radiation equivalent to 30 chest X-rays.
At 8,100 micrograms, this is the biggest surge measured by Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector since the rover landed 12 years ago.
While very high, NASA says this dose of radiation would not have proven deadly to any astronauts that had been on the surface.
Nevertheless, radiation could prove a problem to future Mars explorers. So what can they do about it?
“Cliffsides or lava tubes would provide shielding for an astronaut from such an event. In Mars orbit or deep space, the dose rate would be significantly more,” says Don Hassler of Southwest Research Institute’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado, who is the principal investigator of Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this active region on the Sun continues to erupt, meaning even more solar storms at both Earth and Mars over the coming weeks.”
Aurorae on Mars
While Curiosity was on the ground experiencing the effects of the solar storm on the Martian surface, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) orbiter got a look at the aurorae over the planet.
While Earth’s magnetic field normally means aurorae on our planet are restricted to the poles, Mars has no internally generated magnetic field, and so charged particles from the Sun can caused aurorae to appear over the whole planet.
MAVEN data was used by scientists to produce a timeline of the aurora event on Mars, between 14 – 20 May 2024, as seen in the video above.
“This was the largest solar energetic particle event that MAVEN has ever seen,” says MAVEN Space Weather Lead, Christina Lee of the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.
“There have been several solar events in past weeks, so we were seeing wave after wave of particles hitting Mars.”