Detection of visible-wavelength aurora on Mars
- Elise W. Knutsen
- Timothy H. McConnochie
- Mark Lemmon
- Chris Donaldson
- Raymond Francis
- Carey Legett
- Shayla B. Viet
- Lauriane Soret
- Daniel Toledo
- Víctor Apestigue
- Olivier Witasse
- Franck Montmessin
- Rebecca Jolitz
- Nicolas M. Schneider
- Leslie Tamppari
- Agnès Cousin
- Roger C. Wiens
- Sylvestre Maurice
- James F. Bell
- Olivier Forni
- Jeremie Lasue
- Paolo Pilleri
- Tanguy Bertrand
- Priya Patel
- Susanne Schröder
- Shannon Curry
- Christina O. Lee
- Ali Rahmati
2025-05-14
Mars hosts various auroral processes despite the planet’s tenuous atmosphere and lack of a global magnetic field. To date, all aurora observations have been at ultraviolet wavelengths from orbit. We describe the discovery of green visible-wavelength aurora, originating from the atomic oxygen line at 557.7 nanometers, detected with the SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Near–real-time simulations of a Mars-directed coronal mass ejection (CME) provided sufficient lead-time to schedule an observation with the rover. The emission was observed 3 days after the CME eruption, suggesting that the aurora was induced by particles accelerated by the moving shock front. To our knowledge, detection of aurora from a planetary surface other than Earth has never been reported, nor has visible aurora been observed at Mars. This detection demonstrates that auroral forecasting at Mars is possible, and that during events with higher particle precipitation, or under less dusty atmospheric conditions, aurorae will be visible to future astronauts.