A solar storm on September 11 sparked planet - wide aurorae on Mars 25 times brighter than previous observations , double the reason radiotherapy level . The consequences of this intense event were detect by the Curiosity Rover on the surface and by MAVEN in orbit .
" NASA ’s distributed set of skill missions is in the correct position to detect activity on the Sun and probe the personal effects of such solar event at Mars as never possible before , " MAVEN Program Scientist Elsayed Talaat , program scientist at NASA Headquarters , said in astatement .
MAVEN stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution and is outfit with ultraviolet instruments that can examine extremely light Martian sunrise . peculiarity lark about a Radiation Assessment Detector ( RAD ) which has monitor the planet ’s surface since the charge start up in 2012 . The high post - storm reading endure more than two days .
" This is incisively the type of issue both missions were designed to study , and it ’s the big we ’ve learn on the surface so far , " RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute add up . " It will meliorate our savvy of how such solar issue regard the Martian environment , from the top of the atmosphere all the way down to the surface . "
Mars does n’t have a magnetic field like Earth , so aurorae are not limit to higher parallel of latitude , alternatively they can form globally . Particles from the Sun hit the entire atmosphere which give off UV light . This particularly intense storm just made it much brighter .
The solar event was so impressive that we were able to detect its effects even on Earth , although we were on the diametric side of the Sun at the fourth dimension . It came just a few day after our satellite experience a sudden and unexpectedburst of activityfrom the Sun .
" The current solar bicycle has been an odd one , with less natural action than usual during the peak , and now we have this heavy event as we ’re draw close solar minimum , " explain Sonal Jain of the University of Colorado Boulder , a member of MAVEN ’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument team .
Using both atmospherical and on the ground monitoring , it ’s very authoritative to prepare for succeeding crew deputation to the red planet . Since Mars miss a magnetic field , astronauts would n’t have much protection during a solar violent storm .
" If you were outdoors on a Mars paseo and learned that an event like this was imminent , you would definitely need to take shelter , just as you would if you were on a space base on balls outside the International Space Station , " Hassler clarified . " To protect our spaceman on Mars in the futurity , we take to carry on to offer this type of space atmospheric condition monitoring there . "
