by The same giant sunspot that was responsible for triggering a historic geomagnetic storm on Earth in mid-May turned up a legendary one for Mars a few days later.
On May 20, data from the Europa Solar Orbiter spacecraft revealed an estimated X12 solar flare – the strongest type on the flare classification scale — erupted from the sunspot AR3664 (renamed AR3697 on the second trip around the sun). A powerful coronary mass ejection (CME) followed, sending a huge cloud of super-hot solar plasma towards Mars at millions of miles per hour.
The impacts from this solar event provided a good education for scientists who were watching everything. Researchers with NASA MAVEN orbiter, 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, and Curiosity Mars rover Each played key roles in gathering data from the event that will help us better understand our nearby planet and plan future crewed visits to it.
“We really got the full range of space weather at Mars from May 11-20, from large flares, CMEs and bursts of extremely energetic solar particles, and we have only begun to scratch the surface analyzing the data. The May 14 flare really delivered as expected,” Ed Thiemann, a helophysicist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Space.com in an email.
“The flare hit the atmosphere of Mars as expected, and the resulting CME was indeed successful auraras,” Thiemann said.
MAVEN (short for “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution”) had a front-row seat for a spectacular display of the auroras above Mars. But it is the way that auroras are created in the Martian atmosphere It is much different than what happens here on Earth.
The Earth has a magnetic field that protects us from charged particles. This field pushes such particles towards the poles, which is why auroras are usually only visible from high latitudes. On the other hand, Mars lost its magnetic field in ancient times and is therefore not protected from these particles. Therefore, when the particles hit the atmosphere of Mars, the resulting auroras are widespread throughout the entire planet.
The Curiosity Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument can pick up the most energetic particles, which travel all the way down to the surface of the Red Planet, but it’s the less energetic ones that create the spectacular auroras. That’s where MAVEN’s Solar Energetic Particle instrument comes in, allowing scientists to measure the amount of energy that creates an aurora and recreate the event.
“This was the largest energetic solar particle event ever seen by MAVEN,” said Christina Lee, MAVEN Space Weather Lead at the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, in recently released by NASA. “There have been several solar events in recent weeks, so we’ve been seeing wave after wave of particles hitting Mars.”
Curiosity’s RAD instrument also played an important role, gathering information to better educate scientists on how solar storms affect the Martian surface.
For example, RAD data showed how much radiation was generated by the particle storm in Curiosity’s vicinity – a dose of about 8,100 micrograys. If someone had been standing next to the rover at the time, they would have been absorbed by the radiation equivalent of 30 chest X-rays! This was the largest boom ever detected in Curiosity’s 12-year life on Mars. To give you an idea of the amount of solar energy generated from this event, just look at the black and white camera image from a navigation camera on Curiosity (pictured above). There was so much power when the storm hit the Martian surface that white sparks of “snow” were being sprayed across the picture as the charged particles hit the camera!
Meanwhile, when Odyssey encountered the energetic particles in Mars’ orbit, its star camera (used to guide the orbiter) was affected, promptly knocking it out of line. Even with the brief retreat, the orbiter was still able to collect data on the charged particles as well as X-rays and gamma rays with its High Energy Neutron Detector.
And it’s not just technology that can observe this phenomenon from particle explosions; people can, too.
“The ‘specks’ and ‘streaks’ observed in the camera on board are not far from what astronauts see when particles of a radiation storm threaten their eyes. In fact, astronauts on board the ISS often describe see ‘fireworks’ when they close their eyes during radiation storms,” Tamitha Skov, a retired Aerospace Corporation research scientist and professor of space weather at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, told Space.com in an email.
“This is because an energetic particle will deposit some energy when it passes through the CCD sensor in a camera or the retina in the eye, and the deposited energy creates a false signal, causing the camera or eye to mistakenly believe that he is seeing a speck or streak of light,” Skov added.
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Scientists say that much radiation would not be fatal to humans, but it reminds us that future visitors to the Red Planet will need proper protection. The information gathered gives us a better understanding of how we can keep our Mars astronauts safe in the event of powerful solar storms, researchers say.
“Cliff sides or lava tubes would provide additional shielding for an astronaut from such an event. In Mars orbit or in deep space, the dose rate would be much greater,” Don Hassler, RAD principal investigator at Division Solar System Science and Exploration Southwest Research Institute. in Boulder, Colorado, said in the same NASA release.
In addition to the safety of people on the Red Planet, scientists are also concerned about agricultural development there. Powerful solar storms like the one last month could make it harder to plant and grow enough food in the planet’s already challenging environment.
“Since growing plants requires sunlight, energy and a lot of room, it will be difficult to grow enough food in lava tubes or caves, even if the colonists are able to provide enough artificial light to sustain their growth,” said Skov. ” Unlike Earth, the atmosphere on Mars is so dense that energetic particles can penetrate the entire ground. This means that radiation storms, of one kind or another, are a constant problem there. They are similar with a light mist raining incessantly on the surface, all the time.”
With the AR3697 sunspot region now making its second appearance on Mars, researchers are looking forward to the opportunity to see what else they can learn from this stubborn sunspot.
“This same sunspot group is still active and rotating towards Mars this week, and may provide more events to help our understanding of the evolution and loss of the Martian atmosphere,” Thiemann said.
