NASA's Perseverance rover has detected electric sparks in dust devils and storms on Mars, with the US-based space agency saying that this discovery "dramatically changes" our understanding of the Red Planet.
As per the study, published in the journal Nature, the rover detected 55 distinct electrical events, including 16 events when dust devils passed directly over the rover.
Dust devils, which can be several kilometres high, are spinning columns of rising warm air that lift fine dust particles off the Martian surface.
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According to NASA, the phenomenon has long been theorised, but it's been confirmed through audio and electromagnetic recordings captured by the rover's SuperCam microphone.
The electrical discharges are caused by the triboelectric effect, where friction between tiny dust grains generates electrical charges. NASA explains that it's the phenomenon that happens when a person walks over a carpet in socks and then touches a metal doorknob, generating a spark.
"Triboelectric charging of sand and snow particles is well documented on Earth, particularly in desert regions, but it rarely results in actual electrical discharges," Baptiste Chide, a member of the Perseverance science team and a planetary scientist at L'Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in France, said as quoted by NASA.
"On Mars, the thin atmosphere makes the phenomenon far more likely, as the amount of charge required to generate sparks is much lower than what is required in Earth's near-surface atmosphere."
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"We got some good ones where you can clearly hear the ‘snap' sound of the spark," co-author Ralph Lorenz, a Perseverance scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland said as quoted by NASA.
"In the Sol 215 dust devil recording, you can hear not only the electrical sound, but also the wall of the dust devil moving over the rover. And in the Sol 1,296 dust devil, you hear all that plus some of the particles impacting the microphone."
The detection of electric sparks on Mars provides new insights into the planet's atmospheric processes and potential habitability. The findings will play a crucial role in future robotic and human missions to Mars.
