The sky on Mars has a wind of ultraviolet light that pulses as it moves across the red planet. This phenomenon is similar to Earth’s aurora borealis events, lasting from sunset to midnight, and NASA has created a new animation using data obtained from an instrument on the MAVEN spacecraft to demonstrate what it can look like. future astronauts in orbit. That is, it is what they would see if it were not invisible to the naked human eye.
“The ultraviolet glow usually comes from a height of about 70 kilometers (about 40 miles), with the brightest place about a thousand kilometers (about 600 miles), and is as bright in the ultraviolet as the northern lights of the earth, “explained Zac Milby, a researcher at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).
Milby is one of several other LASP scientists who published a recent study on the ‘night glass’ data in the journal JGR Space Physics. The team analyzed the value of two Martian years of images created by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft to find the reported wind and UV emission behavior. “The MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars has received a new type of imaging data that reveals the effects of global scale winds and waves in the upper atmosphere,” details of the Plain Language translation.
With a mission to Mars in full travel plans for both NASA and SpaceX, learning as much as possible about the planet’s atmosphere is essential. Preparations for both on-site scientific study and astronaut safety will need to address the Martingale ground conditions, so studies like these provide very important and relevant data. Recent findings also demonstrate the importance of cooperative international efforts in the exploration of deep space, namely because MAVEN was not the first spaceship to prove the existence of the ‘night glass’ phenomenon. Rather, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter mission revealed it in 2003, leading the way for follow-up and further study.
It may also be interesting to note that although on Mars-based astronauts may not be able to see the UV aurora-type night glass with their normal eyes, instruments may be likely to come into play to overcome such limitations. We already have commercially available UV cameras on Earth, for example. There’s even an add – on camera for UV cameras that one could use on Mars to see the glowshow in a similar way as augmented reality Starinders on the market.
Of course, many more science-oriented UV cameras would probably guide all travelers to the planet, but it’s fun to imagine what might one day be available to more tourist species than even Martian colonists.
You can watch a video below of NASA’s animation of the UV night glass wind on Mars below:
