Are there thunderstorms on Mars? – Cade, age 7, Houston, Texas
Mars is an excessively dry planet with little or no water in its environment and hardly ever any clouds, so chances are you’ll now not be expecting it to have storms. But, there may be lightning and thunder on Mars – despite the fact that now not with rain, nor with the similar gusto as climate on Earth.
Greater than 10 years in the past, my planetary science colleagues and I discovered the primary proof for lightning moves on Mars. Within the following decade, different researchers have endured to review what lightning could be like at the pink planet. In November 2025, a Mars rover first captured the impressive sounds of lightning sparking at the Martian floor.
Mars mud storms are again and again better and taller than this huge terrestrial mud satan photographed in a valley close to Las Vegas.
Fernando Saca, College of Michigan
Lightning on Mars
On Earth, lightning is an electrical discharge that starts within large clouds.
However as a result of Mars is so dry, it doesn’t have clouds of water – as a substitute, it has clouds of mud. With little water to overwhelm dust on Mars, mud clouds can briefly develop into large, windy mud storms a couple of instances taller than Earth’s tallest thunderstorms.
When smaller mud debris and bigger sand debris collide with every different whilst being whipped round by way of those storms, they pick out up a static rate. Smaller mud debris tackle a favorable rate, whilst better sand debris transform destructive. The smaller mud debris are lighter and can waft upper, whilst the heavier sand has a tendency to fall nearer to the bottom.
As a result of oppositely charged debris don’t love to be aside, sooner or later the power construction between the destructive fees upper up within the mud hurricane and the sure fees nearer to the bottom turns into too nice and is launched as electrical energy – very similar to lightning.
The air across the electrical energy all of a sudden warms up and expands – on Earth, this creates the surprise waves that you simply pay attention as thunder.
No person has observed a flash of lightning on Mars, however we suspect it’s extra just like the glow from a neon mild somewhat than an impressive lightning bolt. The ambience close to the skin of Mars is ready 100 instances much less dense than on Earth: It’s a lot more very similar to the air within neon lighting.
The mud satan proven creates a depressing observe because it lifts the small and brighter mud debris.
Mars World Surveyor/NASA/JPL/Malin Area Science Techniques
Freeing radio waves
Whilst no person has ever observed visual mild from Martian lightning, we’ve heard one thing very similar to the radio waves created by way of lightning on Earth. That’s the noise that the Perseverance rover reported on the finish of 2025. They sound like electrical sparks do on Earth. The rover recorded those indicators on a microphone as small, sandy tornadoes handed by way of.
A mud satan travels around the Martian panorama.
NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY
On the lookout for Martian lightning
When my colleagues and I went looking for lightning on Mars a decade in the past, we knew the pink planet emitted extra radio waves all through mud hurricane seasons. So, we looked for modest will increase in radio indicators from Mars the use of the huge radio dishes that NASA makes use of to speak to its spacecraft. The dishes serve as like large ears that concentrate for faint radio indicators from spacecraft some distance from Earth.
We spent from 5 to 8 hours each day being attentive to Mars for 3 weeks. Sooner or later, we discovered the indicators we had been on the lookout for: radio bursts with frequencies that matched up with the radio waves that lightning on Earth can create.
Creative influence of a sparkling mud satan on Mars. As an alternative of lightning, electrical discharges on Mars mud storms are anticipated to supply a glow-like discharge like that illustrated within the backside of this mud satan.
Nilton Renno, College of Michigan
To search out the precise supply of those lightning-like indicators, we looked for mud storms in photos taken by way of spacecraft orbiting Mars. We matched a dirt hurricane just about 25 miles (40 kilometers) tall to the time after we’d heard the radio indicators.
Finding out about lightning on Mars is helping scientists perceive whether or not the planet can have as soon as hosted extraterrestrial existence. Lightning could have helped create existence on Earth by way of changing molecules of nitrogen and carbon dioxide within the environment into amino acids. Amino acids make up proteins, tens of hundreds of which can be present in a human frame.
So, Mars does have storms, however they’re some distance drier and dustier than the thunderstorms on Earth. Scientists are frequently finding out lightning on Mars to raised perceive the geology of the pink planet and its doable to host residing organisms.
And because interest has no age restrict – adults, tell us what you’re questioning, too. We gained’t have the ability to resolution each query, however we can do our very best.
