EGU24-1981, updated on 08 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1981
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Solar wind controls on Martian proton aurora brightening and atmospheric ion loss intensifying

Fei He1,2, Kai Fan1,2, Andrea Hughes3, Yong Wei1,2, Jun Cui4, Nicholas Schneider5, Markus Fraenz6, Xiao-Xin Zhang7, Qingyu Meng8, and Xiaodong Wang8
Fei He et al.
  • 1Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (hefei@mail.iggcas.ac.cn)
  • 2College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • 3NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
  • 4School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, China.
  • 5Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
  • 6Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany.
  • 7National Center for Space Weather, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China.
  • 8Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Charge exchange between solar wind protons and local hydrogen atoms generates hydrogen energetic neutral atoms (H-ENAs) in the extended neutral hydrogen corona surrounding Mars. The following collisions between H-ENAs and atmospheric molecules generate a distinct proton aurora. How the solar wind influences the proton aurora activity in the short term is not well unknown. We found that there are synchronized proton aurora brightening and atmospheric ion loss intensifying on Mars, both controlled by solar wind dynamic pressure, using observations by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft. Significant erosion of the Martian ionosphere during periods of high dynamic pressure indicates at least five-to-tenfold increase in atmospheric ion loss. An empirical relationship between ion escape rate and auroral emission enhancement is established, providing a new proxy of Mars’ atmospheric ion loss with optical imaging that may be used remotely and with greater flexibility.

How to cite: He, F., Fan, K., Hughes, A., Wei, Y., Cui, J., Schneider, N., Fraenz, M., Zhang, X.-X., Meng, Q., and Wang, X.: Solar wind controls on Martian proton aurora brightening and atmospheric ion loss intensifying, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-1981, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1981, 2024.