Evidence of a Transient Ionopause at Mars Identified from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations

Details Evidence of a Transient Ionopause at Mars Identified from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations Evidence of a Transient Ionopause at Mars Identified from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p13b1316d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P13B-1316

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2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 2400 Ionosphere (6929), 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

One way to measure the ionospheric electron density with the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) on the Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft is from the excitation of local plasma oscillations. With this method it is possible to obtain local electron densities at spacecraft altitudes typically between 250 and 1300 km. A study of the electron density versus time for more than 500 orbits revealed that in some orbits it is possible to identify a very sharp step in the electron density that we interpret as an ionopause, similar to the ionopause boundary that is commonly observed at Venus. Measurements from the Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-3) Electron Spectrometer (ELS) instrument on MEX verify that these sharp decreases in the electron density occur somewhere between the end of ionospheric photoelectrons and the magnetosheath. This study shows that the average altitude of the ionopause is almost constant, around 500 km, from subsolar region up to solar zenith angles of 60o, after which the ionopause altitude shows a slight increase. Investigation of the effect of crustal magnetic fields on ionopause altitude shows that the ionopause boundary is raised at the locations where strong crustal magnetic fields are located.

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