Measuring the Global Impact of Electricity in an Intense Dust Storm on Mars

Nationalgeographic.co.id – The planet Mars is notorious for its intense dust storms, some of which raise enough dust for telescopes on Earth to see.

When dust particles rub against each other, as they do in Martian dust storms, they can be electrocuted. Transfer positive and negative electrical charges in the same way you build up static electricity if you walk on carpet.

Strong electric fields form in dust storms on Earth, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this also occurs on Mars. But what happened next? Maybe not a sudden flash of lightning, as we might expect on Earth.

In contrast, planetary scientist Alian Wang at the University of Washington in St. Louis thinks the electric discharges on Mars might look more like a dim light. (No lander, rover or other mission to Mars has captured a real picture of it)

“It can be like auroras in the polar regions of Earth, where energetic electrons collide with dilute atmospheric species,” said Wang, a research professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences.

Striking or not,”faux-rora” This Mars still packs a punch.

Wang’s new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters demonstrated that electricity in dust storms could be a major driving force for Mars’ chlorine cycle.

As background, scientists consider chlorine to be one of the five elements “moving” on Mars (the others being hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and sulfur). This means chlorine, in various forms, moves back and forth between the surface and the atmosphere on Mars.

In the soil, chloride deposits, similar to shallow salt flats on Earth, are widespread. These chloride deposits most likely formed early in Mars’ history as chloride salts precipitated from brine.

In the new study, Wang shows that one of the highly efficient ways of moving chlorine from the ground into the air on Mars is through reactions triggered by electrical discharges generated in Martian dust activity.

“The high rates of chlorine release from common chlorides revealed by this study indicate a promising pathway for converting surface chlorides to the gaseous phase we now see in the atmosphere,” said Kevin Olsen, a researcher at The Open University, in England, and a member of the team. new study author.