NASA rover detects electrical discharges – ‘mini-lightning’ – on Mars

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It is the primary documentation {of electrical} exercise within the skinny Martian environment.

“The electrical charges required for these discharges are likely to influence dust transport on Mars, a process fundamental to the planet’s climate and one that remains poorly understood. What’s more, these electrostatic discharges could pose a risk to the electronic equipment of current robotic missions – and even a hazard for astronauts who one day will explore the Red Planet,” Chide stated.

The researchers analyzed 28 hours of microphone recordings made by the rover over a span of two Martian years, detecting 55 electrical discharges, normally related to mud devils and mud storm fronts.

“We did not detect lightning by the common definition. It was a small spark, perhaps a few millimeters long, not really lightning. It sounded like a spark or whip-crack,” stated planetary scientist and research co-author Ralph Lorenz of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

Sixteen of {the electrical} discharges have been recorded throughout Perseverance’s two shut encounters with mud devils.

The inner dynamics of mud devils give rise to {the electrical} discharges.

“I would call it ‘mini-lightning,'” Chide stated. “The phenomena are caused by the friction of tiny dust grains rubbing against each other in the air, which builds up electrons and then releases their charge as electrical arcs just a few centimeters long, accompanied by audible shockwaves.”

The phenomenon is known as triboelectricity.

“Think of a sunny, dry day when you walk on a rug or a rubber surface and bring your hand close to a door handle. The small spark you might generate, and thus experience, is the same kind of electrostatic discharge that we detected with SuperCam on Perseverance,” stated planetary scientist and research co-author Franck Montmessin of the French analysis company CNRS and analysis laboratory LATMOS.

Electrical exercise within the Martian environment had lengthy been suspected.

“What we’ve observed is a result of having exceptionally sensitive instrumentation observing for a long period, so we can detect very small discharges, about the energy of an automobile ignition,” Lorenz stated.

“The Mars atmosphere was looking very favorable for electrification: full of dust, dry and turbulent,” Chide stated. “On terrestrial deserts on Earth, the electrification of dust and sand is well-documented, but it rarely results in actual electrical discharges. On Mars, however, the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere makes this phenomenon far more likely, as the amount of charge required to generate sparks is much lower than it is on Earth.”

SuperCam recorded the very first Martian sounds in 2021, shortly after Perseverance landed.

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