Green light on a red planet
Our planet, in addition to its many advantages, occasionally treats its inhabitants to a spectacular light show known as the Aurora. This phenomenon occurs when charged particles from space collide with atoms in Earth’s atmosphere, ionizing the gas atoms present and knocking their electrons off, which ultimately causes them to emit light. Although we often associate auroras with Earth, they can occur on any planetary body with an atmosphere.
In fact, auroras have been documented by spacecraft on several other planets in our solar system. However, auroras had never been recorded from the surface of another planet, nor had they been observed on Mars in visible wavelengths. Both of those milestones have now been achieved, thanks to NASA’s Perseverance rover, which for the first time captured visible-wavelength auroras from the surface of Mars.
Despite the scientific importance of the discovery, the observation itself—captured over a year ago and recently published in a scientific journal — is far less striking than the auroras we see on Earth. “It would be a dull or dim green glow to astronauts’ eyes,” explained Roger Wiens of Purdue University, one of the researchers involved in the study. Several factors contribute to the aurora’s weaker appearance on Mars.
The most significant is that, unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global magnetic field. On Earth, this field channels incoming charged particles toward the poles, producing concentrated and vibrant light displays. On Mars, however, the particles are more widely dispersed across the sky, resulting in lower concentrations and thus fainter emissions. Adding to this is Mars’s thin atmosphere, composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide.
The green glow observed on Mars is caused by charged particles interacting with oxygen atoms within the carbon dioxide molecules. By contrast, Earth’s auroras primarily result from interactions of the charged particles with nitrogen and other elements, which generate a broader spectrum of colors. Further diminishing the spectacle is the image quality—Perseverance’s cameras were not designed for low-light or nighttime photography, making the recorded auroras appear especially subdued.
Nevertheless, this unique observation opens a new window into understanding Mars and its atmospheric behavior. It also paves the way for improved future observations. While Perseverance is currently operating near the Martian equator, Wiens suggests that moving future observations to the southern regions could yield stronger results. “That’s the most magnetized part of the planet,” he explained. “Aurora in that area might look particularly strong.”
Dust over water
One of the most intriguing phenomena on Mars is the dark streaks that appear and disappear intermittently along the planet’s steep slopes. First observed nearly 50 years ago by NASA’s Viking landers, these streaks have since been repeatedly documented through remote sensing. They can stretch for hundreds of meters and vary in duration—some lasting years, others just weeks or months—and occasionally reappear cyclically in the same locations.
Naturally, the initial tendency of Earth-based observers was to associate the phenomenon with seasonal water flows, similar to rainfall runoff or melting glaciers. Although Mars’s atmospheric pressure is too low to sustain liquid water on the surface, researchers speculated that underground ice could melt during warmer seasons and seep out as highly saline water, which would evaporate more slowly
Over the years, numerous studies have examined the phenomenon—some presented compelling evidence that liquid water might be involved, while others countered these findings, arguing that the seasonal color streaks could be explained by dust flows. In a new study, researchers from the United States and Switzerland used artificial intelligence to analyze the phenomenon, concluding that it is not caused by flowing water.
The researchers trained an AI model to recognize these seasonal streaks in satellite images of Mars. Once the model achieved reliable detection accuracy, they applied it to an enormous dataset of over 86,000 images from Mars. The AI identified around half a million such streaks across various regions of the planet. “Once we had this global map, we could compare it to databases and catalogs of other things like temperature, wind speed, hydration, rock slide activity and other factors,” said Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland. “Then we could look for correlations over hundreds of thousands of cases to better understand the conditions under which these features form.”
Geo-statistical analysis revealed that the seasonal streaks are not more likely to occur under conditions typically associated with the presence of liquid water—such as specific slope angles, higher temperatures, or increased humidity. Instead, the phenomenon is much more common in places characterized by strong winds and dust storms. The researchers concluded that the streaks are created when a large amount of dust simultaneously cascades down a slope.
The geo-statistical analysis revealed that the seasonal streaks do not occur more frequently under conditions typically associated with liquid water, such as higher temperatures, steeper slopes, or elevated humidity. Instead, the phenomenon is significantly more common in regions marked by strong winds and frequent dust storms. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that the streaks are formed by large-scale dust avalanches cascading down Martian slopes—not by water flows.
The conclusions are naturally disappointing for those hoping to discover surface-accessible water on Mars—a crucial factor for future crewed Mars missions. Other studies have provided strong indications for the presence of both frozen and even liquid water beneath the Martian surface in various locations.
What about Starship?
SpaceX has not yet received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)to proceed with the ninth test flight of its Starship spacecraft. Although founder and CEO Elon Musk announced a week ago that the test flight was imminent, the company is still awaiting official confirmation that it has addressed the issues that caused the spacecraft to explode during its eighth test, roughly two months ago. According to the latest notices issued to ship and aircraft operators, the test flight is now scheduled for no earlier than Tuesday, May 27.
The last two test flights—in January and March 2025—ended in a similar fashion. The Super Heavy booster, which powers the launch, successfully returned to Earth and was caught by the launch tower’s mechanical arms before being placed back on the ground. However, in both the seventh and eighth tests, the upper-stage spacecraft—Starship itself—exploded just minutes after separation. Each test used a newer version of the spacecraft, following earlier successes in hitting key developmental milestones in previous tests.
For the ninth test, SpaceX is expected to return to an earlier, partially successful flight profile: a suborbital ballistic trajectory that does not complete a full orbit around Earth, bringing the spacecraft back into atmospheric re-entry over the Indian Ocean. There, it will perform a controlled descent and sea landing maneuver, designed to simulate a soft, vertical touchdown on land. This test may also include a range of additional experiments.
These could involve in-space engine firings, fuel transfer between internal tanks—a critical capability for future deep-space missions—or the deployment of dummy satellites in low Earth orbit. Another notable milestone expected during this flight is the reuse of the Super Heavy booster for the first time. The same rocket that launched the seventh test flight, which landed successfully, will be used again, potentially marking a significant step forward in SpaceX’s efforts to make both stages of its next-generation launch system fully reusable.
Malfunctions of the third stage
India’s space agency, ISRO, has suffered a setback in its latest attempt to deploy a large Earth observation satellite. The satellite, ESO-09, was launched on Sunday morning aboard a PSLV-C61 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southeastern India. While the first two stages of the four-stage rocket functioned as planned, a malfunction during the operation of the third stage ultimately led to the loss of the satellite.
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ESO-09 was intended to be the ninth satellite in India’s Earth monitoring series and was scheduled to enter orbit at an altitude of 535 kilometers. Although officially described as a multipurpose satellite rather than a military one, India Today wrote ahead of the launch that “its ability to provide round-the-clock, reliable intelligence is especially significant given ongoing security concerns along India’s borders with Pakistan and China.”
The Indian PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has a strong track record and is generally considered reliable. Out of 63 launches over the past three decades, this marks only the fourth failure. This particular mission used the XL configuration, equipped with six strap-on boosters. Notably, it is the first time a mission has failed due to a third-stage malfunction. The cause of the failure has not yet been disclosed.