Like 30 X-rays at once. A solar storm with the highest radiation levels in the last 12 years has been captured on Mars on video

Data from Europe's Solar Orbiter spacecraft recorded the largest solar flare event, later estimated to be X12 - Class X solar flares are the strongest of several types. This was followed by a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) that sent a huge cloud of super-hot solar plasma toward Mars at a million miles per hour.

Traveling at the speed of light, the X-rays and gamma rays from the flare arrived first, while the charged particles were slightly behind, reaching Mars in just tens of minutes. Had the astronauts been standing by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during that time, they would have received a radiation dose of 8,100 microgray, the equivalent of 30 chest X-rays. While not fatal, it was the highest spike measured by Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, since the rover landed 12 years ago, NASA's Jet Propulsion Labaratory writes.

The RAD data will help scientists plan for the highest level of radiation exposure astronauts might encounter, which could use the Mars landscape for protection.

"Rock slopes or lava tubes would provide additional protection for an astronaut from such an event. In Mars orbit or deep space, the dose rate would be much higher. I would not be surprised if this active region on the Sun continues to erupt, which means more solar storms on both Earth and Mars in the coming weeks," RAD principal investigator Don Hassler of the Solar System Research and Exploration Division at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, commented to Space.

During the May 20 event, so much energy from the storm hit the surface that black-and-white images from Curiosity's navigation cameras danced with "snowballing" - white streaks and spots caused by charged particles hitting the cameras.

The impact from this solar event was quite an experience for the scientists watching. Researchers with NASA's MAVEN orbiter, the Mars Odyssey 2001 orbiter and the Curiosity rover each played a key role in gathering information about the event that will help better understand the neighboring planet and plan future visits to it.

"We really got the full spectrum of space weather on Mars from May 11 through May 20, from large flares, CMEs and an extreme solar energetic particle flare. We've just started analyzing the data on the surface. The flare did indeed significantly inflate and heat the Mars atmosphere as expected, and the resulting CME did produce auroras," commented Ed Tiemann, a heliophysicist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado.

In addition to creating auroras, the recent extreme storm has provided more details about the amount of radiation future astronauts may encounter on the Red Planet.

Scientists have been waiting for epic solar storms since the sun entered a period of peak activity earlier this year called solar maximum. Last month, NASA's Mars rovers and orbiters gave researchers a front-row seat to a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections that reached Mars - in some cases even causing Martian auroras.

This gold mine of science offered an unprecedented opportunity to study how such events unfold in deep space, as well as what kind of radiation exposure the first astronauts on Mars might face.

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