Meredith is a regional Murrow award-winning Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and science/space correspondent. She most recently was a Freelance Meteorologist for NY 1 in New York City & the 19 First Alert Weather Team in Cleveland.
The specks in the sequence of images in this video were caused by charged particles from a solar storm hitting one of the navigation cameras aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The mission uses the rover's navigation cameras to try capturing images of dust devils and wind gusts, like the gust seen here.The same gigantic sunspot that was responsible for triggering a historic geomagnetic storm on Earth in mid-May whipped up a legendary one for Mars a few days later.
Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector instrument can pick up the most energetic particles, which get all the way down to the Red Planet's surface, but it's the less energetic ones that create the stunning auroras. That's where MAVEN's Solar Energetic Particle instrument comes into play, allowing scientists to take the measure of the aurora-creating energy and recreate the event.
For example, RAD data showed just how much radiation the particle storm generated in Curiosity's vicinity — a dose of about 8,100 micrograys. If a person had been standing next to the rover at the time, they would've soaked up the equivalent radiation of 30 chest X-rays! This was the biggest surge ever detected in Curiosity's 12-year lifespan on Mars.
That giant sunspot that supercharged auroras on Earth? It's back and may amp up the northern lights with June solar storms.
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