Electron Densities in the Upper Ionosphere of Mars from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations

Details Electron Densities in the Upper Ionosphere of Mars from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations Electron Densities in the Upper Ionosphere of Mars from the Excitation of Local Electron Plasma Oscillations

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufm.p41a0198d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #P41A-0198

Computer Science

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2437 Ionospheric Dynamics, 2439 Ionospheric Irregularities, 2459 Planetary Ionospheres (5435, 5729, 6026), 2481 Topside Ionosphere, 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

In addition to the remote sounding of the ionosphere, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on the Mars Express spacecraft, also excites local electron plasma oscillations. This paper summarizes the investigation of the local electron density using measurements of the locally excited electron plasma oscillation frequency. One of the advantages of this method is that the electron densities can be measured at very high altitudes, where remote ionospheric echoes cannot be detected. Measurements from 503 orbits over the period from August 4, 2005 to July 31, 2007 show that the average electron densities at a given solar zenith angle (SZA) decrease exponentially with increasing altitude. There is considerable variability at a given altitude due to the fact that the data at a specific altitude are obtained from different orbits. On the dayside of Mars, this exponential behavior continues up to altitudes of around 750 km. The scale height, in this altitude region, ranges between 130 km and 190 km. The average electron density is almost constant throughout the dayside in a given altitude range, but decreases rapidly as the spacecraft goes into the nightside. Simulations performed using different methods, show that the nearly constant density at a given altitude is due to transport effects. Investigation of individual orbits shows that the electron density throughout a pass often has large fluctuations, sometimes as much as
ne/ne ~ 50 %, on time scales as small as 8 s.

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