“Dim light will be most noticeable during the evening hours when the sky background is darker,” said study lead author Bill Farrell, a plasma scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Space, Sunday (6/2/2022).
Unfortunately, Ingenuity is an experimental drone that isn’t allowed to fly at dusk or dawn, but we might be able to observe its effect on helicopters. Mars in the future.
Where is the process drone Mars may glow similar to the common effects on Earth of electric currents, including the corona or electric glow sometimes seen on planes. More broadly, this research provides an avenue for better understanding the accumulation of electric charge on the rotor blades, known as charging triboelectric.
Triboelectric charging occurs during friction that transfers electric charges between objects, which you can usually see when someone rubs a balloon against their hair on Earth. The balloon then “pulls” the person’s hair, showing evidence of an electric field caused by friction.
“When the blades impact the grains, charge is transferred, building up on the blades and creating an electric field,” NASA said in a statement.
“As the charge rises to high levels, the atmosphere begins to conduct electricity, a process known as ‘atmospheric breakdown’. The process creates a population of electrons that form an enhanced electric current that acts to remove or offset charge build-up on the rotor plane.”
This study was published March 10, 2021 in Planetary Science Journal. The study was published before the Perseverance and Ingenuity rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. Now, almost a year later, Ingenuity has made 18 flights and spent more than 30 minutes of flight.
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