Mysterious new auroras on Mars discovered

Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) probe, Hope, has captured stunning images of Mars' enigmatic auroras that will provide new insights into the interactions between the Red Planet's atmosphere, its magnetic fields and the solar wind.

Auroras are dancing waves of light like the northern lights seen on Earth which have captivated people for millennia. They appear on a planet when solar activity disturbs its atmosphere.

The latest observations by EMM include a never-before seen phenomenon, dubbed the 'sinuous discrete aurora' - a huge worm-like aurora that extends halfway around the Red Planet. "When we first imaged Mars' discrete aurora shortly after the Hope probe's arrival at Mars in 2021, we knew we had unveiled new potential to make observations never before possible on this scale, and we took the decision to increase our focus on these auroras," said EMM Science Lead, Hessa Al Matroushi.

"We can obtain nearly whole-disk, synoptic snapshots of the atmosphere to investigate atmospheric phenomena and interactions. It means we are seeing discrete auroral effects on a massive scale and in ways we never anticipated," Matroushi said in a statement. The sinuous discrete aurora consists of long worm-like streaks of energised electron emission in the upper atmosphere extending many thousands of kilometres (km), stretching from the dayside into the night side of Mars, EMM said.

The aurora observations were imaged when Mars was experiencing the effect of a solar storm, resulting in a faster, more turbulent stream of solar wind electrons than usual. The observations are some of the brightest and most extensive yet seen by Hope.