NASA’s Mars Animation Shows ‘Nightglow’ As Bright As The Northern Lights
Image via NASA
NASA has released a simulation of Mars’ “nightglow,” which shows the Red Planet emitting ghastly ultraviolet (UV) beams.
The video was developed by Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft. The observations were published in the latest paper on the journal Space Physics.
Scientists pointed out that the “nightglow” phenomenon on Mars can be seen when it releases bright flashes, likely from nitric oxide emissions.
This could be a result of the UV light from the sun breaking down carbon dioxide and nitrogen molecules on Mars’ dayside, which are then transferred via high-altitude winds to the night side where wind altitudes are lower.
This then causes the carbon dioxide and nitrogen particles to rejoin and form energy later released through UV light.
“The ultraviolet glow comes mostly from an altitude of about 70 kilometers (around 40 miles), with the brightest spot about a thousand kilometers (around 600 miles) across, and is as bright in the ultraviolet as Earth’s northern lights,” Zac Milby, a student researcher at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and co-author of the study, detailed in a statement to NASA.
[via Futurism, cover image via NASA]
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