NASA Recruits Mars Perseverance Rover to Monitor Sun’s Activity

NASA hires Mars Perseverance rover to monitor solar activity

TO Claire Cameron edited by Ginna Bryner

NASA has developed its own project Mars rover Perseverance to help control solar activity. Every day for the next two months, the rover will photograph the Sun using Mastcam-Z cameras, collecting important information about sunspots and other large objects that could provide clues to solar activity.

Mars is currently passing behind the Sun, giving the rover the opportunity to see the far side of the star—a perspective we can't see from Earth. Perseverance's Mastcam-Z system, which consists of zoom-capable cameras attached to its mast, is not designed to monitor solar activity; The rover points the system at the Sun once a day to measure dust in the Martian air, important information for predicting weather on the Red Planet. But it is sensitive enough to see large sunspots.

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This isn't the first time NASA has used Perseverance as a solar observatory—the agency also used the rover to take images. sunspots in 2024.

Sunspots are temporary dark areas on the Sun that occur when intense magnetic fields block heat from inside the Sun. Concentrated in active regions, they can last for days or months and usually coincide with other phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. If these energy explosions directed towards Earth, they can cause auroras and even malfunction of satellite and radio systems.

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