MAVEN Orbiter Provides Data on Radiation Environment on Mars, Discovers Red Planet To Be Hit by Intense Solar Storms as Much as Earth

Over the recent weeks, the Sun has become so active that our planet has been repeatedly attacked by the particles emitted by eruptions of solar plasma. It turns out that Mars has also been an epic target of intense solar storms.

Red Planet in the Firing Line

The effects of solar storms in the Martian atmosphere are registered by instruments such as the MAVEN orbiter. The spacecraft helps parlay that data into understanding the radiation environment on the Red Planet and how it may affect human explorers in the future.

Wave after wave of particles were seen hitting Mars due to the several solar events in the previous weeks. According to physicist Christina Lee of the University of California, Berkeley, this was the largest solar energetic particle event observed so far by the MAVEN orbiter.

Here on Earth, the largest effects of solar storms were seen in early May, when coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were released to the direction of our planet. CMEs refer to massive ejections of solar plasma and magnetic fields which sometimes occur with solar flares.

As a result, observers here on Earth witnessed a spectacular array of auroral colors that were seen at latitudes where those sights were not normally visible. Solar particles tangled with the magnetic field of the Earth and rained down onto the atmosphere, interacting with the particles to produce a stunning light display.

The sunspot that emitted the particles has rotated away to the far side of the Sun, but our host star is not yet done with its solar activities. On May 20, an enormous eruption took place on the far side, producing a solar flare, which is categorized as X12, placing it among the most powerful solar flares ever observed.

Right after the eruption, a coronal mass ejection spewed forth, and Mars was located in the firing line. Light from the solar flare arrived first, bathing the Red Planet in solar X- and gamma radiation. Since the CME particles travel slower than the speed of light, they arrived a little later, resulting in an aurora display in the Martian atmosphere.

Martian Magnetic Environment

The distance of Mars from the Sun is only 1.5 times that of the Earth. This means that the Red Planet is not far from the massive ejections of particles emitted by our host star through the entire Solar System.

The magnetic environment and atmosphere of Mars are also much weaker than those of Earth. This means that the effects of solar storms, as we see here on Earth, look a little bit different on Mars.

Aside from this, Mars also does not have a global magnetic field the way our planet does. This is due to the fact that the Red Planet lacks the operational internal activity to produce it.

On Earth, the presence of magnetic fields accelerates solar particles to the polar region, where they rain down into the ionosphere. This is the reason why the aurora display is centered at higher latitudes.

Since Mars does not have a magnetic field that can do this phenomenon, the light displays there tend to be global. Surprisingly, the resulting light shows are in the form of ultraviolet light, so they are not seen by the human eye.