Structure of the Dayside Martian Upper Ionosphere from MEX MARSIS Topside Soundings

Details Structure of the Dayside Martian Upper Ionosphere from MEX MARSIS Topside Soundings Structure of the Dayside Martian Upper Ionosphere from MEX MARSIS Topside Soundings

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa11a..02m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA11A-02

Computer Science

Sound

[2437] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Dynamics, [2459] Ionosphere / Planetary Ionospheres, [5435] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Ionospheres, [6225] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mars

Scientific paper

The MARSIS Active Ionospheric Sounder on board the Mars Express spacecraft takes radar soundings of the Martian topside ionosphere. The ionospheric trace typically has a hook or cusp shape near the maximum plasma frequency in the ionosphere, indicating that the sounding wave is traveling through a region where its frequency is just below the ionospheric maximum. This kind of structure can also occur at frequencies well below the maximum, where it is sometimes reduced to a discountinuous change in the slope of the ionospheric trace. Cusp-like features at sounding frequencies below the ionospheric maximum have been interpreted as indicative of ionospheric layers above the main layer, variously attributed to waves, instabilities, or the transition from a photochemical- to a transport-dominated ionosphere; previous work on the generation of this phenomenon has been inconclusive. In this study, we continue this work by studying the correlation of the frequency of the slope discontinuity to the maximum ionospheric plasma frequency. We use standard inversion techniques to study the altitude of the discontinuity as a function of the solar zenith angle. Finally, for a few long-lived cases, we follow the evolution of the cusp-like or discontinuous feature. These results will tell us whether this layer is caused by processes in photochemical equilibrium, whether the altitude and density of the high-altitude structure are correlated with properties of the ionosphere at lower altitudes, and how these structures evolve in density and altitude, thus giving us definitive information about the morphology and dynamics of the Martian upper ionosphere.

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