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Perseverance Records First Direct Evidence of Martian Electrical Activity

A Nature study ties the signals to dust lifting in Mars’s thin air with implications for chemistry and mission safety.

Mars regularly experiences dust storms, like this one captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2012. Scientists say they found evidence of "mini lightning" during some of these storms.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Detection of electric discharges in dust devils by the SuperCam instrument on board NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. Image credit: Nicolas Sarter.

Overview

  • Researchers identified 55 triboelectric discharge events in about 28 hours of SuperCam microphone data collected over two Martian years.
  • Most detections aligned with strong winds, with 54 events occurring during the top 30% of recorded wind speeds.
  • Sixteen events occurred during two close dust-devil encounters, indicating dust lifting as a key driver of the discharges.
  • The signals indicate small, millimeter-to-centimeter static sparks rather than Earth-style lightning, with low energies comparable to a mild static shock.
  • The team notes no visual confirmation and calls for purpose-built sensors to quantify energies, assess chemical effects such as oxidant production and methane loss, and evaluate risks to spacecraft electronics and future crews.