Comets, solar storms, and the Martian ionosphere: Past and predicted blackouts of MARSIS radar returns

Details Comets, solar storms, and the Martian ionosphere: Past and predicted blackouts of MARSIS radar returns Comets, solar storms, and the Martian ionosphere: Past and predicted blackouts of MARSIS radar returns

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p23a0053e&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P23A-0053

Computer Science

Sound

5435 Ionospheres (2459), 6023 Comets: Dust Tails And Trails (6210), 6225 Mars, 7514 Energetic Particles (2114), 7944 Ionospheric Effects On Radio Waves

Scientific paper

We present observations from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument onboard Mars Express from the fall of 2005. This period was marked by intervals when the MARSIS subsurface sounder often gave no usable returns. The intermittency of these "blackouts" indicates that the culprit cannot be absorption by a constant ionization layer that has been predicted to occur due to steady-state meteoric infall. Likewise, we find no correlation with any known Mars-crossing comets that might plausibly create meteor showers and hence temporarily create a metallic ionization layer. Instead, we find that some of the blackouts correlate very well with solar activity; this matches previous work done with the Active Ionospheric Sounder mode of MARSIS. Additionally, we find that the longest interval of blackouts occurred when the spacecraft was observing from times near midday and hence we theorize that the denser ionosphere at these times prevented the radar from seeing the surface. Based on our survey of Mars-crossing comets, we predict that a temporary layer of increased ionization will be created when, in the near future, Mars passes through the recent track of comet 9P/Tempel-1. This passage will occur at nearly the same location as the impact of the comet by the spacecraft Deep Impact in July 2005 and thus the meteoric effects on Mars may be enhanced for this interaction.

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