Solar Wind Energetic Neutral Atom Observation at Mars by MINPA Onboard the Tianwen-1 Orbiter
- 1National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
- 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- 3State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
- 4Institute of Science and Technology for Deep Space Exploration, Suzhou Campus, Nanjing University, Suzhou 215163, China
- 5Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physics Institute, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
The Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer (MINPA), one of the seven scientific payloads onboard the Tianwen-1 orbiter, was designed to measure ions and energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) at Mars. Here, we present MINPA's first results of the solar-wind ENAs, which are produced through the charge exchange process between the solar wind hydrogen ions and the neutral atoms of the Martian exosphere. We perform a comprehensive comparison between the inflight ENA data and ground calibration results to understand the energy and angular distributions of the solar-wind ENA signals by MINPA, and an algorithm is developed to convert the ENA count rate to intensity. The contamination by solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and the observation independency between ENAs and ions are both evaluated. We will present several cases and statistic results of the solar wind ENA observations, and their intensities are estimated to be 10^5~10^6 cm^-2 sr^-1 s^-1, which is in good agreement with previous model attempts.
How to cite: Ma, J., Li, W., Kong, L., Galli, A., Wurz, P., Tang, B., Zhang, Y., Xie, L., Wang, L., and Qiao, F.: Solar Wind Energetic Neutral Atom Observation at Mars by MINPA Onboard the Tianwen-1 Orbiter, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-7269, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-7269, 2024.
