Perseverance Hears Electric Discharges in Martian DustStorms

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A paper in Nature presents evidence of lightning on Mars, detected in sounds and electrical signals captured by NASA's Perseverance rove. The observations indicate that Mars's atmosphere is electrically active, which may have implications for future exploration. go.nature.com/49IbPpg

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-- Nature Portfolio (@natureportfolio.nature.com) Nov 27, 2025 at 9:12 AM

More from the article ...

... New evidence from NASA, published in the journal Nature, shows that the Martian surface might be even less hospitable than previously believed. The Perseverance rover has recorded the telltale signatures of electric discharges within Martian dust storms, which could have major implications for future missions.

When it arrived at Mars in 2021, Perseverance carried the third-ever human microphone to an alien world. The first two had been duds, brought to Mars in 1998 by the Mars Polar Lander and in 2007 by the Phoenix lander, only to prove incapable of recording sounds.

Perseverance, on the other hand, finally managed to record and transmit sound waves in the atmosphere of Mars. That's not easy, since the "air" on the Red Planet is less than a percentage point as thick as that on Earth, but it is possible. ...

#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-01-01 12:51 AM | Reply

Cool, now do 3IAtlas.

#2 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2026-01-02 06:22 PM | Reply

@#2 ... Cool, now do 3IAtlas. ...

OK ...

A Giant Telescope Searched 3I/ATLAS For Signs of Aliens. Here's Why.
www.sciencealert.com

... A dedicated scan for signs of radio-transmitting technology in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has come back with absolute cometary radio silence.

The Breakthrough Listen project used one of the world's biggest, most sensitive radio telescopes, the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope, to listen for several hours to the comet roughly a day before it reached perigee on 19 December 2025.

The team searched for artificial technosignatures across a wide range of radio frequencies, and while many signals were heard, not a single one turned out to be from the comet.

That's not a surprise -- there's absolutely nothing about 3I/ATLAS that indicates anything other than "comet" -- but, well, the Universe handed humanity this opportunity on a platter.

We'd have been silly NOT to look. ...

#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-01-02 09:54 PM | Reply