Overview
- NASA reports 55 brief discharges recorded over roughly two Martian years, providing the first direct in situ evidence of near‑surface electrical activity on Mars.
- The events were captured by Perseverance’s SuperCam microphone as electrical transients followed by audible snaps, with seven full sequences documenting both signals.
- Most detections occurred in the top 30% of local wind speeds at the leading edges of dust storms, with 16 during dust‑devil overpasses and little correlation with seasonal global dustiness.
- A small loop in the microphone wiring acted as an unintended antenna, and researchers reproduced the signatures with a SuperCam replica to verify the interpretation.
- Timing shows the sparks occurred just a few meters from the rover and at energies comparable to static shocks, prompting interest in dedicated sensors to assess chemical effects and risks to future missions.