Images: Rare Mars Aurora Captured By UAE's Hope Probe

Aurora in Mars’ nightside atmosphere was captured in recent images by The UAE’s Hope Probe.

“We have totally blown out ten years of study of Mars’ auroras with ten minutes of observations,” said Justin Deighan, the Emirates Mars Mission deputy science lead.

“The data we are capturing confirms the tremendous potential we now have of exploring Mars’ aurora and the interactions between Mars’ magnetic fields, atmosphere, and solar particles with coverage and sensitivity we could only previously dream of.

“These exciting observations go above and beyond the original science goals of the Emirates Mars Mission.”

Aurora in Mars’ night side atmosphere are extremely rare to capture, however, Hope has a higher possibility of imaging the phenomenon than any other spacecraft because of its unique elliptical orbit around the planet. It observes the night side on every one of its 55-hour orbits of the planet.

The UAE's Hope Probe, first-ever Arab interplanetary mission, has captured the first global images of Mars’ Discrete Aurora. The high-quality images open up unprecedented potential for the global science community to investigate solar interactions with Mars. pic.twitter.com/5Bt4ZZX2L9

— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) June 30, 2021

“The implications for our understanding of Mars’ atmospheric and magnetospheric science are tremendous and provide new support to the theory that solar storms are not necessary to drive Mars’ aurora,” said Hessa Al Matroushi, science lead of the mission