By BlueShift | 2026-01-02

A NASA rover has recorded evidence of lightning on Mars for the first time, with its microphone picking up the zapping sounds of electrical discharges stirred up by dust devils sweeping across the planet.

Scientists had theorized that friction generated by dust grains swirling against each other in Martian dust devils could generate enough of an electrical charge to eventually produce electrical arcs, but had found no evidence to support this.

Then it turned out that NASA's Perseverance rover, which has been roaming Mars since 2021, was inadvertently recording the sounds of lightning, according to a study published November 26 in the journal Nature.

The discovery has implications for Martian atmospheric chemistry, climate and habitability, according to NASA, and could help inform the design of future robotic and human missions to Mars.

"We got some good [recordings] where you can clearly hear the ‘snap’ sound of the spark,” said study coauthor Ralph Lorenz, a Perseverance scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in the US state of Maryland.

"In the Sol 215 (Martian solar day around September 27, 2021) dust devil recording, you can hear not only the electrical sound, but also the wall of the dust devil moving over the rover," he said.

"And in the Sol 1,296 (March 29, 2016) dust devil, you hear all that plus some of the particles impacting the microphone.”

'Little zaps'

The electrical discharges recorded by the rover are not like the lightning bolts observed during storms on Earth.

They are "little zaps" similar to "what you might feel in dry weather when you touch your car door and there's a bit of static electricity," lead author Baptiste Chide of France's CNRS research center told AFP.

While low in energy, these discharges are happening "absolutely all the time -- and everywhere" on Mars, the planetary scientist said.

When grains of dust rub against each other, they become charged with electrons and release this energy in electrical arcs, sending off an audible shock wave.

On Earth, dust devils also create electrical fields. But they rarely build up into electrical discharges.

On Mars, however, "because of the very low pressure and the composition of the atmosphere, the amount of charge that needs to accumulate to generate a discharge is much smaller," Chide explained.

This phenomenon has been theorized since Mars first started to be explored, and has been reproduced in the laboratory.

Chide said it had been "such an important issue for Martian science" that an instrument on the European Space Agency's Schiaparelli lander was dedicated to searching for it.

Unfortunately the spacecraft crashed while trying to land on Mars in 2016. Since then, "it was somewhat of a forgotten area for Martian exploration," Chide said.

That is, until "by chance" the microphone on Perseverance's SuperCam recorded signals of what appeared to be electrical discharges, he added.

'Persuasive evidence'

Cardiff University lightning expert Daniel Mitchard, who was not involved in the study, commented in Nature that the research provided "persuasive evidence of dust-induced discharges."

But because the discharges "were only heard and not seen," he anticipated that debate between scientists on the subject would continue for some time.

The research could shed some light on the mysterious Martian climate.

"Dust drives the Martian climate," similar to the water cycle on Earth, Chide said, with a season of dust storms beginning in late 2025.

The electrical discharges could kick off a process that destroys organic molecules, the building blocks of life, on the Martian surface.

It also could explain the surprisingly rapid disappearance of methane on the planet -- a phenomenon that has baffled scientists.

Harnessing this new knowledge in future missions, scientists will now be able to design their instruments to better protect robots sent to Mars, Chide said.

And there are plans for humans to finally step foot on the planet's red surface.

"In the long term, isn't there a risk that the suits of the astronauts who stay on the Martian surface for a long time will be damaged by these discharges?" Chide asked.

"We will have to ask ourselves this question."