Written in TRENDS he 4/5/2024 · 00:00 a.m.
Last update: 3/5/2024 · 1:13 p.m.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will take advantage of the imminent maximum of solar activity to study how solar flares They can affect robots and future astronauts on the Red Planet.
At the peak of its 11-year cycle, the Sun is especially prone to extreme events in a variety of forms, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which launch radiation into the depths of space. When a series of these solar events erupt, it is called a solar storm.
This peak period will be observed this year from Mars by the orbiter MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatiles EvolutioN) and NASA’s Curiosity rover.
Mars is not like before
Earth’s magnetic field greatly protects our planet from the effects of these storms, but Mars lost its global magnetic field long ago, leaving the Red Planet more vulnerable to the sun’s energetic particles.
“For humans and those active on the Martian surface, we don’t have a solid idea of what the effect of radiation is during solar activity,” Shannon Curry of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado said in a statement. Boulder.
The MAVEN Mission
MAVEN observes radiation, solar particles and more from high on Mars. The planet’s thin atmosphere can affect the intensity of the particles by the time they reach the surface, which is where NASA’s Curiosity rover comes into play.
Data from Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, have helped scientists understand how radiation breaks down carbon-based molecules. on the surface, a process that could affect whether signs of ancient microbial life are preserved there.
“You can have a million low-energy particles or 10 extremely high-energy particles,” said RAD principal investigator Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute office in Boulder, Colorado.
“While MAVEN instruments are more sensitive to lower energy instruments, RAD is the only instrument capable of detecting high energy instruments that pass through the atmosphere to the surface, where the astronauts would be.”
When MAVEN detects a large solar flare, the orbiter team informs the Curiosity team. so that they can observe changes in the RAD data. The two missions can even assemble a time series that measures changes of up to half a second as particles reach the Martian atmosphere, interact with it, and ultimately hit the surface.
The MAVEN mission also leads an early warning system that allows other Mars spacecraft teams know when radiation levels start to increase. The advisory allows missions to shut down instruments that could be vulnerable to solar flares, which can interfere with electronics and radio communications.
Beyond helping keep astronauts and spacecraft safe, studying solar maximum could also help understand why Mars went from a warm, humid Earth-like world billions of years ago to the icy desert that is. today.
Mars is at a point in its orbit where it is closest to the Sun, which warms the atmosphere. That can cause billowing dust storms to blanket the surface. Sometimes storms merge and become global.
