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Ion distributions in the vicinity of Mars: Signatures of heating and acceleration processes

Fedorov, A.; Barabash, S.; Lundin, R. +5 more

More than three years of data from the ASPERA-3 instrument on-board Mars Express has been used to compile average distribution functions of ions in and around the Mars induced magnetosphere. We present samples of average distribution functions, as well as average flux patterns based on the average distribution functions, all suitable for detailed …

Control of ion loss from Mars during solar minimum

Brecht, Stephen H.; Ledvina, Stephen A.

A hybrid particle code has been used to examine the interaction of the solar wind with Mars during solar minimum. The results were surprising as they produced ion loss rates from Mars far in excess of what is estimated from MEX. The results are analyzed and found to be consistent with the competition between photochemical rates and advection of th…

Upper ionosphere of Mars is not axially symmetrical

Gurnett, D. A.; Barabash, S.; Lundin, R. +6 more

The measurements carried out by the ASPERA-3 and MARSIS experiments on board the Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft show that the upper Martian ionosphere (^h ≥ 400 km) is strongly azimuthally asymmetrical. There are several factors, e.g., the crustal magnetization on Mars and the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) which c…

Ion acceleration by multiple reflections at Martian bow shock

Fedorov, A.; Barabash, S.; Lundin, R. +7 more

The ion mass analyzer (IMA) on board Mars Express revealed bundled structures of ions in the energy domain within a distance of a proton gyroradius from the Martian bow shock. Seven prominent traversals during 2005 were examined when the energy-bunched structure was observed together with pick-up ions of exospheric origin, the latter of which is u…

Ionogram inversion for MARSIS topside sounding

Wan, Weixing; Han, Xiuhong

In the present paper, we propose a method of ionogram inversion to retrieve the electron density profile, N_e(h), of the Martian ionosphere from the topside ionogram, which is measured by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on board the Mars Express spacecraft. The new inversion technique is…