NASA Finds Lightning on Mars After Decade-Long Search

Mars just joined an exclusive club of planets where lightning dances through the sky.

Two NASA spacecraft have detected signs of lightning on the Red Planet, solving a mystery scientists have chased for years. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter and the Perseverance rover each caught different electrical signatures during Martian dust storms.

Finding lightning on Mars proved trickier than spotting it on Jupiter, Saturn, or Neptune. Mars has only a thin atmosphere and weak magnetic field, so instead of dramatic lightning bolts like we see on Earth, Martian lightning looks more like glowing sparks created by electrically charged dust swirling through the air.

Ondřej Santolík, a space physicist at the Czech Academy of Sciences, led a team that discovered one precious lightning signal in June 2015. His researchers examined 108,418 snapshots from the MAVEN orbiter, looking for special radio waves called whistlers that lightning creates when it heats and ionizes the air around it.

"It's very surprising that we found it at all," Santolík says. The team spent a full year confirming the single observation matched what they'd expect from real lightning.

Meanwhile, Perseverance's microphone recorded dozens of crackling sounds from small electrical discharges during dust storms near the rover. These two different observations likely represent different types of electrical activity, similar to how Earth has both thunderstorm lightning and the gentle glow of Saint Elmo's fire.

Why This Inspires

This discovery matters for more than scientific bragging rights. Understanding Martian lightning helps protect the rovers and spacecraft we send to explore our neighboring planet.

Even more exciting, lightning creates chemical reactions that could support the development of life. Every spark on Mars might be mixing ingredients that make the planet more hospitable than we thought.

Karen Aplin, a space physicist at the University of Bristol who studies planetary lightning, captured the moment perfectly: "It sort of gives a feeling that we're closing in on Mars lightning."

After years of searching through thousands of data points and listening to Martian winds, scientists finally have proof that electricity crackles through alien skies just 140 million miles away.