NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured the first aurora on Mars visible to the human eye, marking a historic milestone in planetary exploration and offering a glimpse of a potential spectacle for future astronauts on the red planet.
The green aurora appeared in the dusty Martian sky during a solar storm in March 2024, triggered by a solar flare followed by a coronal mass ejection that sent charged particles toward Mars. European and U.S. researchers reported that the team had three days’ notice to prepare the rover’s cameras for the rare event.
Until now, Martian auroras had only been observed in ultraviolet light from orbit. This marks the first time such a phenomenon has been captured in visible wavelengths from the planet’s surface.
The findings, published in Science Advances by Elise Wright Knutsen of the University of Oslo and colleagues, suggest that aurora forecasting on Mars is now possible. This advancement opens new possibilities for studying Martian space weather.
Though dust in the atmosphere dimmed the display, scientists believe more intense events under clearer conditions could produce auroras bright enough to be seen directly by astronauts in the future.
Perseverance, which has been exploring Jezero Crater since 2021, continues its mission to collect rock and dust samples from an area once thought to have held a lake and river delta—potentially preserving signs of ancient microbial life.
