A team led by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, has used data from NASA's now-ended MAVEN mission to demonstrate that auroras on Mars form through a process similar to Earth's Dungey Cycle. The Dungey Cycle, named in 1961, describes how the Sun's magnetic field lines reconnect with a planet's magnetosphere, injecting charged solar particles that create electrical currents and generate auroras. On Earth, this process channels particles toward the poles, producing widespread auroral displays. However, because Mars lacks a global magnetic field—its core dynamo ceased about 4 billion years ago—it only has miniature magnetospheres from magnetized crustal regions. The study, published July 23rd in *Nature Communications*, shows that a "miniature Dungey-like cycle" occurs over these localized fields, producing much smaller, highly localized auroras.