Two teams of Boulder researchers helped detect an unexpected strong blast from the sun that hit Mars earlier this month and lit up the planet “like a lightbulb,” according to one scientist.

The solar event was observed by NASA missions both in orbit and on the surface, led by two Boulder teams, the University of Colorado’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, and the Mars Science Laboratory’s Radiation Assessment Detector led by the Boulder office of Southwest Research Institute.

The Sept. 11 solar event created a global aurora at Mars more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by the MAVEN orbiter, which has been studying the Martian atmosphere’s interaction with the solar wind since 2014, according to a news release.

It also produced radiation levels on Mars’ surface more than double any measured before by the Curiosity rover’s Radiation Assessment Detector, since that mission’s landing in 2012. The high readings lasted more than two days.

“When a solar storm hits the Martian atmosphere, it can trigger auroras that light up the whole planet in ultraviolet light,” said Sonal Jain of CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and a member of MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument team. “The recent one lit up Mars like a light bulb.”