Because Mars can be seen with the naked eye from Earth due to its reddish color, it is also called the Red Planet. But when it gets dark there, another color apparently dominates: green. Researchers have now discovered this using ESA’s ‘Trace Gas Orbiter’ (TGO) probe.
Scientists have suspected that there is ‘airglow’ on Mars for about forty years, but the first observation was only ten years ago by the ESA orbiter ‘Mars Express’, which observed the phenomenon but discovered it in the infrared spectrum.
Using data sent to Earth by TGO, astronomers have now been able to observe the phenomenon – a green glow – in visible light for the first time. ‘Nightglow’ also occurs on Earth. The glow is created when two oxygen atoms in the atmosphere come together to form an oxygen molecule (see animated image below).
Formed by the formation of oxygen molecules
The sun is involved in creating nighttime light. Their light breaks down carbon dioxide molecules in Mars’ dayside atmosphere, creating oxygen atoms. These migrate to the night side of the Red Planet, where they group into O2 molecules and radiate the green glow.
“The intensity of the night glow in the polar regions is so strong that simple and relatively cheap instruments in orbit around Mars can map and monitor the atmospheric currents,” planetary scientist Jean-Claude Gérard, leader of the study, said on the website from the European Space Agency. ESA cited.
These new observations are unexpected and interesting for future trips to the Red Planet. Gérard is confident that the green light is so intense that it can be observed by future astronauts from orbit or from the bottom of Mars during the polar night (photo above).
The probe has been orbiting Mars since October 2016
The ‘Trace Gas Orbiter’ of the European-Russian ‘ExoMars’ project was launched into space aboard a rocket in March 2016 and placed in a nearly circular orbit around Mars in 2018. The probe is controlled from the ESA Satellite Control Center in Darmstadt (ESOC).
Source: Krone
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