By: Serena Li

On May 10, 2024 (just in time for Mother’s day!) powerful solar storms slammed Into Earth, spreading auroras that illuminated the sky. Ten days later, the sun emitted more storms, as a coronal mass ejected a flood of charged particles and radiation except this time it wasn’t on Earth, but on Mars.

“We really got the full range of space weather at Mars from May 11-20th, from large flares, CMEs and an extreme solar energetic particle burst, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface analyzing the data. The May 14th flare really did deliver as expected,” stated Ed Thiemann, a heliophysicist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado. “This was the largest solar energetic particle event that MAVEN has ever seen.

Luckily, no astronauts were on Mars while the event happened. NASA’s Curiosity rover measured the storm’s radiation at 8,100 micrograys, which would be very harmful to the human body. This was the highest amount of radiation recorded in Curiosity’s mission. The rover’s images have streaks and specks that show how strong the charged particles were during that time.

Radiation levels on the red planet might be a challenge for humans to explore it. In Mars orbit or deep space, the radiation rate would be significantly more. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this active region on the Sun continues to erupt, meaning even more solar storms at both Earth and Mars over the coming weeks,” said Don Hassler.

Overall, we should be aware of the radiation and danger of the solar storms. Now, it will be arduous to explore Mars and other parts of the solar system because of the storms.

Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/science/mars-aurora-solar-storm.html