UAE hope probe releases first-ever global images of Mars’ Aurora

Abu Dhabi: The United Arab Emirates Mars mission on Wednesday released the first global images of Mars in the far-ultraviolet, providing new insights into the discrete aurora phenomenon in Mars nightside atmosphere.

The UAE ‘Hope Probe’ was able to take three pictures of the atmosphere of Mars, in its first working mission after the successful entry into the orbit of the red planet in February.

The probe’s digital camera captured three ‘blue, green and red’ visible spectra, which represented a precise, detailed picture of the red planet’s atmosphere.

Aurora occur when high-energy particles collide with the world’s atmosphere, transferring energy to atoms in the air and making them glow. On Earth, these particles are directed toward the poles by the planet’s magnetic field, but Mars does not have a similar global magnetic field.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai took to Twitter and said  that the Hope Probe had captured the first image of the phenomenon of hidden aurora on Mars.

Bin Rashid said, on Wednesday, through his official account on Twitter: “I do not swear by the twilight, the night and it’s overflow, and the moon if it is consistent.” “For the first time in human history, the Hope probe, the first Arab and Islamic probe, depicts the phenomenon of the hidden twilight Discrete Aurora on the red planet.”

He added: “Let us open up new horizons for humanity to study this divine cosmic phenomenon.”

The official page of the Hope probe on Twitter published a series of posts about the photos taken by the Hope probe, one of which says that these photos were taken on April 22 and 23 and on May 6 of this year 2021.

The images show the emissions of atomic oxygen surrounding Mars with a wavelength of 103.4 nanometers, indicating that they were measured by the ultraviolet spectrometer of the Hope probe.

In another post pointed out that these photos are exceptional and unprecedented, and it is the first time that this phenomenon has been captured in high-resolution details.

In third post stated out that the images show Mars at dusk, adding: “We can notice points of light in the dark (night) side, which is a separate twilight.”

The Hope Probe is the first Arab-Islamic probe, launched by the United Arab Emirates last February to be the first Arab country to reach Mars.

On February 14, the UAE probe sent the first image of Mars, after it successfully reached its orbit around the red planet, five days before it.

The Hope probe aims to study the atmosphere of Mars in an integrated manner over a Martian year, equivalent to about two years on the Earth calendar.

The project seeks to collect 1,000 gigabytes of new data and information on the Red Planet.