What’s turning the Red Planet green?!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science saying…
A Martian aurora! The first visible one, captured by NASA’s Perseverance!
Elise Knutsen and team at the University of Colorado spotted this phenomenon after a solar storm. The charged solar particles zoomed toward Mars. Without a global magnetic field, the particles hit oxygen and lit up the sky!
Earth’s auroras are trapped near its magnetic poles. But on Mars? They can fill the atmosphere!
What’s the big deal? Well, future astronauts might enjoy a natural light show — or get zapped by radiation! Understanding Martian space weather helps us plan for safe human missions!
So yes… the skies really are greener on the other side!
Reference: Knutsen, E. W., et al. (2025). Detection of visible-wavelength aurora on Mars. Science Advances, 11(20), eads1563. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads1563