The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently shared the moment when purple aurora light took over the red planet Mars at night.
NASA shared the video captured by its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument aboard NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter on Instagram, calling the purple aurora light ‘purple rain.’
NASA wrote on its social media account, “The purple color in the video shows auroras across Mars’ nightside as detected by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument aboard NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter. The brighter the purple, the more auroras were present.”
It explained the video by saying, “Taken as waves of energetic particles from a solar storm were arriving at Mars, the sequence pauses at the end, when the wave of the most energetic particles arrived and overwhelmed the instrument with noise.”
The aurora lights that occur on Mars are different colors from those seen on Earth.
As per NASA, “Earth is shielded from charged particles by a robust magnetic field, which normally limits auroras to regions near the poles.”
“Mars lost its internally generated magnetic field in the ancient past, so there's no protection from the barrage of energetic particles. When charged particles hit the Martian atmosphere, it results in auroras that engulf the entire planet.”
Additionally, NASA's MAVEN took these images from May 12 to May 20,2024.
