Overview
- An international team reports in Nature the first direct detection of Martian electrical activity based on audio captured in Jezero crater.
- Researchers cataloged 55 events over nearly four Earth years, consistent with discharges occurring during dust devils and dust fronts.
- The signals featured brief electromagnetic interference followed by acoustic waveforms that were distinguished from rover and wind noise.
- The discharges are short, estimated at tens of centimeters, and are too weak to generate visible lightning in Mars’s thin atmosphere.
- The team says these sparks could drive oxidizing chemistry that degrades organics and present electrostatic hazards for future missions.