For the first time, NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected evidence of lightning on Mars, capturing the faint electrical “zaps” produced by the planet’s persistent dust storms via its onboard microphone.
Scientists have long suspected that electrical discharges could occur in Mars’ atmosphere, but confirming them had proven difficult—until now. A study in Nature reports that Perseverance, exploring Mars since 2021, inadvertently recorded these tiny electrical events.
Unlike Earth’s dramatic, kilometre-long lightning bolts, Martian discharges are extremely small. Baptiste Chide from France’s CNRS research centre compared them to the static shocks you get from touching a car door on a dry day. “Although low in energy, these zaps are happening constantly across the planet,” he said.
The process starts when microscopic dust particles rub together and build an electrical charge, which is released in tiny arcs just millimetres or centimetres long, producing an audible shock. On Mars, the thin atmosphere and unique surface composition make it easier for even small charge buildups to trigger these discharges.
While dust storms on Earth rarely create actual lightning, Mars’ conditions allow this phenomenon to occur more readily. The idea of dust-induced lightning has been around since early planetary exploration and has been reproduced in labs. Instruments on ESA’s Schiaparelli lander in 2016 were meant to detect these discharges, but the mission ended in a crash. Since then, the phenomenon went largely unnoticed until Perseverance’s SuperCam microphone captured it.
Daniel Mitchard, a lightning researcher at Cardiff University, called the recordings “convincing evidence of dust-generated electrical discharges,” though he noted that debate may continue since the events were heard rather than visually observed.
The discovery could shed light on Martian climate dynamics, as dust plays a role similar to Earth’s water cycle, potentially triggering more discharges during seasonal storms. These events may also affect organic molecules on Mars’ surface, helping explain why methane disappears so quickly.
The findings carry implications for future missions: robotic instruments and materials must withstand these discharges, and human explorers may face risks to spacesuits and equipment. Chide emphasized the need to study potential hazards for astronauts on Mars in the long term.
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