Mini-lightning strikes created by whirling dust devils on Mars have been detected accidentally by the microphone on board the Perseverance rover .

The chance discovery is direct evidence of a form of lightning on Mars, researchers say in a report published in Nature . They describe how the rover's microphone picked up signs of electrical arcs just a few centimeters long, which were accompanied by audible shockwaves.

"There's been a very big mystery about lightning on Mars for a long time. It's probably one of the biggest mysteries about Mars," says Daniel Mitchard , a lightning researcher at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, who wasn't part of the research team but wrote an accompanying commentary for the journal.

"The key thing here," he explains, "is that we actually h

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