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Detection of triboelectric discharges during dust events on Mars

95 points by domofutu

by wongarsu

4 subcomments

This discovery is thanks to Perseverance having microphones. It's crazy to think about that 2021 was the first time we had working microphones on Mars.
The first Mars Microphone was originally supposed to land in 1999 on the Polar Lander, but that one didn't survive the landing. The next was in 2008 on Phoenix 's Mars Descent Imager, but in integration testing a bug was discovered that made the Descent Imager risky to use, so that was never activated. And on all the rovers since then a microphone wasn't deemed important enough compared to all the other possible payloads

by throwawayffffas

2 subcomments

What blows my mind is that we had not before. I would think that with all that dust flying around it's got to be pretty common. And we have satellites orbiting Mars for decades and apparently we didn't see any.

by shevy-java

0 subcomment

Thor is there, swinging his ...
hammer.
Edit: Wait a moment ... that's not actually lightning?
"By listening to the sounds of Mars, the team identified interference and acoustic signatures in the recordings that are characteristic of lightning."
So they could only listen to sound? I mean, aren't pictures more convincing? We need more cameras on Mars.

by irjustin

1 subcomments

This isn't lightning like we think on earth. It's only a few centimeters long which is why it's never been detected before except by microphone[0].
[0] https://www.kpbs.org/news/science-technology/2025/11/26/at-l...

by zombot

0 subcomment

by keepamovin

0 subcomment

by chistev

2 subcomments

by amelius

1 subcomments

by dgb23

1 subcomments

by Razengan

1 subcomments

Does that mean Mars' ground is electrically charged (positively or negatively) or what?

by Walt-Stevens21

0 subcomment

by Andrew-Tate

0 subcomment

by verisimi

5 subcomments