Scientists capture the crackling sounds of what they believe is lightning on Mars
CAPE CANAVERAL Fla AP Scientists have detected what they believe to be lightning on Mars by eavesdropping on the whirling wind recorded by NASA s Perseverance rover The crackling of electrical discharges was captured by a microphone on the rover a French-led organization revealed Wednesday The researchers documented instances of what they call mini lightning over two Martian years primarily during dust storms and dust devils Almost all occurred on the windiest Martian sols or days during dust storms and dust devils Just inches centimeters in size the electrical arcs occurred within feet meters of the microphone perched atop the rover s tall mast part of a system for examining Martian rocks via camera and lasers Sparks from the electrical discharges akin to static electricity here on Earth are clearly audible amid the noisy wind gusts and dust particles smacking the microphone Scientists have been looking for electrical activity and lightning at Mars for half a century noted the examination s lead author Baptiste Chide of the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology in Toulouse It opens a thoroughly new field of examination for Mars science Chide reported citing the attainable chemical effects from electrical discharges It s like finding a missing piece of the puzzle The evidence is strong and persuasive but it s based on a single instrument that was meant to record the rover zapping rocks with lasers not lightning blasts announced Cardiff University s Daniel Mitchard who was not involved in the investigation What s more he noted in an article accompanying the examination in the journal Nature the electrical discharges were heard not seen It really is a chance discovery to hear something else going on nearby and everything points to this being Martian lightning Mitchard stated in an email But until new instruments are sent to verify the findings I think there will still be a debate from specific scientists as to whether this really was lightning Lightning has already been authenticated on Jupiter and Saturn and Mars has long been suspected of having it too To find it Chide and his gang analyzed hours of Perseverance recordings documenting episodes of mini lightning based on acoustic and electric signals Electrical discharges generated by the fast-moving dust devils lasted just a meager seconds while those spawned by dust storms lingered as long as minutes It s like a thunderstorm on Earth but barely visible with a naked eye and with plenty of faint zaps Chide commented in an email He noted that the thin carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere absorbs much of the sound making selected of the zaps barely perceptible Mars atmosphere is more prone than Earth s to electrical discharging and sparking through contact among grains of dust and sand according to Chide The current evidence suggests it is extremely unlikely that the first person to walk on Mars could as they plant a flag on the surface be struck down by a bolt of lightning Mitchard wrote in Nature But the small and frequent static-like discharges could prove problematic for sensitive equipment These aren t the first Mars sounds transmitted by Perseverance Earthlings have listened in to the rover s wheels crunching over the Martian surface and the whirring blades of its no-longer-flying helicopter sidekick Ingenuity Perseverance has been scouring a dry river delta at Mars since collecting samples of rock for attainable signs of ancient microscopic life NASA plans to return these core samples to Earth for laboratory analysis but the delivery is on indefinite hold as the space agency pursues cheaper options The Associated Press Wellbeing and Science Department receives promotion from the Howard Hughes Healthcare Institute s Department of Science Learning and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The AP is solely responsible for all content
