UAE’s Hope Probe discovers mysterious new aurora on Mars
Scientists say the discovery left them ‘scratching their heads’ The UAE’s Hope spacecraft has made a landmark discovery of a new type of aurora on Mars. Scientists with the mission are calling it the “sinuous discrete aurora”, a huge, worm-like aurora that extends halfway around the planet. Aurorae are colourful lights that appear on a planet when solar activity disturbs its atmosphere. On Earth, the aurora borealis and aurora polaris — known as northern lights — happens when protons and electrons from solar wind hit particles in the atmosphere, causing colourful lights in the sky. On Mars, however, because of its lack of a global magnetic field and localised crustal magnetic fields in the southern hemisphere, there are three types of aurorae — proton, diffuse and discrete. But the latest discovery has left scientists puzzled, creating new questions about the interactions between Mars’ atmosphere, the planet’s magnetic fields and the solar wind. “When we first imaged Mars’ d...