Indian scientists make unique discovery on Mars: All you need to know

Indian scientists have found the first evidence of solitary electromagnetic waves. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) used data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) to establish the findings. Scientists have identified the solitary waves in the Martian magnetosphere using high-resolution electric field data from MAVEN’s recorded by Langmuir Probe and Waves instruments.

The solitary waves are pulses in the Martian magnetosphere. These fluctuations control other particle functions like particle energisation, plasma loss, and transport through wave-particle interactions. Unlike Earth, which has a strong magnetic field to protect it against ionising solar winds from the Sun, Mars only has a weak magnetic field from its crustal magnetic sources. This allows the solar winds to interact with the Martian atmosphere and create solitary flows. While scientists had theorised that these solitary flows and waves could be observed, teams had been unable to detect these waves before.