The NASA Perseverance Rover first sighted the Aurora on Mars. The rover imaged this historic observation on 15 March 2024, during the recent peak of the solar cycle.

The first image of auroras on Mars

The visible-light auroras that the NASA Perseverance Rover was able to image from the surface of Mars resulted from a recent solar cycle. During this cycle, the Sun produces solar flares along with an explosion of gases and magnetic energy that carries solar particles, known as coronal mass ejection (CME).

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This solar activity produces a brilliant display of auroras that we can’t see from Earth, thanks to our magnetic shield that blocks off the solar flares. After blocking off the particles in these solar flares, we get to see green auroras here on Earth.

However, since Mars lacks a magnetic field, there is a wide range of aurora colours that can be seen during solar cycles. In 2014, the NASA MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission discovered a solar energetic particle (SEP) aurora in ultraviolet light from its orbit.

The NASA Perseverance Rover’s observation was in visible light.

Elise Knutsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway and lead author of the Science Advances study, says: “This exciting discovery opens up new possibilities for auroral research and confirms that auroras could be visible to future astronauts on Mars’ surface.”

Behind The Scenes: Capturing The First Visible-light Aurora On Mars

To ensure that the rover took this image, Elise Knutsen and her team had to research and even prepare the rover to image this aurora. According to Knutsen, the perfect CME for this shot is “one that would accelerate and inject many charged particles into Mars’ atmosphere.”

Knutsen’s team had to rely on the folks at NASA’s Moon to Mars (M2M) Space Weather Analysis Office and the Community Coordinated Modelling Centre (CCMC).

On March 15 2024, the M2M team issued an alert for a coronal mass ejection (CME) heading to Mars. This alert was received by various teams operating several Mars missions, like MAVEN and the NASA Perseverance Rover.

After observing the strength of the coming CME, Knutsen concluded that it could trigger an aurora that the NASA Perseverance Rover can detect. Just a few days after the alert, the CME reached Mars, and the NASA Perseverance Rover was able to image that first visible-light aurora on the Red Planet.