Auroral currents from EMM and InSight: A comparison of EMM-EMUS auroral observations and InSight-IFG magnetic field fluctuations
- 1Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (matt@ssl.berkeley.edu)
- 2Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 3Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai, UAE
- 4United Arab Emirates Space Agency, Abu Dhabi, UAE
- 5Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
- 6Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 7Space and Planetary Science Center, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
- 8Computational Physics, Inc., Springfield, VA, USA
- 9Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
- 10NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville AL, USA
- 11Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- 12Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ, USA
- 13Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géosciences, UMR CNRS 6112, Nantes Université, Nantes, France
The Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) onboard the Emirates Mars Mission spacecraft, which observes ultraviolet emission between approximately 100 and 170 nm, has observed multiple instances of nightside aurora at Mars. Variations in the auroral brightness and morphology have been observed to change on timescales of tens of minutes. The brightest aurorae are typically seen following space weather events, i.e., coronal mass ejection and stream interaction region impacts. The InSight Fluxgate Magnetometer (IFG) on the Interior Explorations using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander measured the magnetic field at the surface of Mars. IFG has measured variations in the nightside surface magnetic field, presumably due to variations in ionospheric and magnetospheric currents. Periodic and aperiodic variations in the surface field have been observed, including with timescales of a few minutes to tens of minutes. The magnitude of the fluctuations is often larger following space weather events. We examine the connection between the presence of aurora as observed by EMUS and surface magnetic field fluctuations as measured by IFG. Coincident EMUS and IFG observations show enhanced surface magnetic field fluctuations during times when aurorae were present. Additionally, the timescale of fluctuations in the auroral brightness are similar to the timescale of surface magnetic field fluctuations for non-coincident observations. These results suggest that IFG measured the surface magnetic field effect of time varying ionospheric auroral currents.
How to cite: Fillingim, M., Lillis, R., Mittelholz, A., AlMatroushi, H., AlMazmi, H., Chaffin, M., Chi, P., Chirakkil, K., Corriera, J., Deighan, J., England, S., Evans, S., Haviland, H., Holsclaw, G., Jain, S., Johnson, C., Joy, S., Langlais, B., Lootah, F., and Raghuram, S.: Auroral currents from EMM and InSight: A comparison of EMM-EMUS auroral observations and InSight-IFG magnetic field fluctuations, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-2149, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-2149, 2023.
