Computer Science – Sound
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..749p&link_type=abstract
European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a
Computer Science
Sound
Scientific paper
Abstract The ionopause of a planet is defined as the boundary between the ionosphere and the solar wind regime. It was first described for Venus when a sharp decrease in electron density towards very small values was found at certain altitudes. So far, the ionopause at Mars has not been well observed. One reason is that the noise of the Viking profiles was relatively high and did not drop below 500 el/cc. The MGS data base is inconclusive concerning the ionopause. The highly elliptical orbit of Mars Express allows us to investigate the electron density of Mars up to an altitude of about 1500 km. The Radio Science Experiment MaRS sounded the Martian atmosphere and ionosphere during four occultation seasons starting from April 2004. During a measurement the spacecraft disappears behind the planetary disk of Mars as seen from the Earth. The uplink (X-band, 7100 MHz) and downlink (X-band 8400 MHz, S-band 2300 MHz) radio signals travel through the ionosphere and atmosphere of Mars from the top at about 1500 km altitude down to the surface. The bending of the radio carrier ray paths in the ionosphere and neutral atmosphere of Mars prior to the occultation offers the possibility to receive altitude profiles of the electron density in the ionosphere. So far, more than 400 vertical profiles of the ionospheric electron density could be derived covering all planetary latitudes and almost all local times of the northern hemisphere. On the basis of these data we want to define the ionopause feature at Mars as an electron density gradient starting well above the topside ionospheric main peak, tending to decrease the electron density towards noisy values around zero. This presentation will show the high variability of the ionopause structures of Mars.
Häußler Boris
Pätzold Martin
Peter Kerstin
Tellmann Silvia
Tyler Leonard G.
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