CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have detected what they believe to be lightning on Mars by eavesdropping on the whirling wind recorded by NASA’s Perseverance rover.The crackling of electrical discharges was captured by a microphone on the rover, a French-led team reported Wednesday.The researchers documented 55 instances of what they call “mini lightning” over two Martian years, primarily during dust storms and dust devils. Almost all occurred on the windiest Martian sols, or days, during dust storms and dust devils.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementJust inches (centimeters) in size, the electrical arcs occurred within 6 feet (2 meters) of the microphone perched atop the rover’s tall mast, part of a system for examining Martian rocks via camera and lasers. Sparks from the electrical discharges — akin to static electricity here on Earth — are clearly audible amid the noisy wind gusts and dust particles smacking the microphone.Scientists have been looking for electrical activity and lightning at Mars for half a century, said the study’s lead author Baptiste Chide, of the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology in Toulouse.“It opens a completely new field of investigation for Mars science,” Chide said, citing the possible chemical effects from electrical discharges. “It’s like finding a missing piece of the puzzle.”The evidence is strong and persuasive, but it’s based on a single instrument that was meant to record the rover zapping rocks with lasers, not lightning blasts, said Cardiff University’s Daniel Mitchard, who was not involved in the study. What’s more, he noted in an article accompanying the study in the journal Nature, the electrical discharges were heard — not seen.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It really is a chance discovery to hear something else going on nearby, and everything points to this being Martian lightning,” Mitchard said in an email. But until new instruments are sent to verify the findings, “I think there will still be a debate from some scientists as to whethe …
