Scientists now believe that they have the tools to predict an aurora’s green glow in the night sky above Mars. It’s sort of like the sun is burping at us, only instead of a noise, we see bright lights dance across the night sky. Rare blues and purples occur when the solar particles interact with the nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere. On the Red Planet, aurorae glow green because the charged particles collide with oxygen atoms high above Mars. Aurorae on Mars have previously been observed from orbit in ultraviolet light by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express.