=A human on the surface of Mars might have seen thousands of shooting stars per hour, possibly a meteor storm.= Today, NASA held a press conference to discuss what happened when Comet Siding Springs buzzed Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. An international fleet of Mars orbiters observed the encounter using a variety of cameras, radars, and other sensors. Among many findings, the highlight was a spectacular meteor shower detected by NASAs MAVEN spacecraft. MAVEN did not actually see streaks of light in the Martian atmosphere--the spacecraft was sheltering behind the body of Mars during the comets flyby. But when MAVEN emerged, it found a glowing layer of Mg+ (a constituent of meteor smoke) floating 150 km above the planets surface. The smoke was made of ionized magnesium and other metals shed by the disintegrating meteoroids. The data are consistent with a few tons of comet dust being deposited in the atmosphere of Mars, says Nick Schneider, the instrument lead for MAVENs Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph at University of Colorado, Boulder. A human on the surface of Mars might have seen thousands of shooting stars per hour, possibly a meteor storm. He further speculated that the meteor shower would have produced a yellow afterglow in the skies of Mars because the meteor smoke was rich in sodium ions. Jim Green, the director of NASAs Planetary Science Division in Washington DC says there was a lot more comet dust hitting Mars than researchers expected, pre-flyby. Radars onboard the ESAs Mars Express spacecraft and NASAs Mars Reconnassance Orbiter also detected signs of meteor-related ions. MAVEN and the other spacecraft are continuing to collect data as the atmosphere of Mars recovers from the encounter. Stay tuned for updates. Thanks to Spaceweather!
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 02:13:16 +0000
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