A First Comparison Between Ionospheric and Surface Level Magnetic Fields at Mars
- 1Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (matt@ssl.berkeley.edu)
- 2Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- 3Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ, USA
- 4Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique, UMR CNRS 6112, Université de Nantes, France
- 5Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 6Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
- 7Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
- 8Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
With both the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission and the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission concurrently operating at Mars, we are able to make two point comparisons of the vector magnetic field at Mars for the first time. During MAVEN overflights of the InSight landing site, we compared deviations in the ionospheric magnetic field to variations in the surface level magnetic field. We find significant orbit to orbit variability in the magnitude and direction of the ionospheric magnetic field as well as significant day to day variability of the surface level magnetic field. We attribute this variability to time varying ionospheric currents. However, when analyzing the ensemble of 16 individual MAVEN overflights of the InSight landing location, we see no clear correlation between the magnitudes or directions of the ionospheric magnetic field and the surface magnetic field as might be expected. If the presumed ionospheric currents have a small scale size, then the ionospheric magnetic field will display increased variability as MAVEN flies through the current structure. Whereas the present analysis is restricted to mostly nightside MAVEN overflights where current are expected to be weak, future analyses should incorporate dayside overflights where current are expected to be stronger and current signatures more clear.
How to cite: Fillingim, M., Johnson, C., Mittelholz, A., Langlais, B., Russell, C., Joy, S., Chi, P., Lillis, R., Espley, J., Smrekar, S., Banerdt, B., and Jakosky, B.: A First Comparison Between Ionospheric and Surface Level Magnetic Fields at Mars, Europlanet Science Congress 2020, online, 21 Sep–9 Oct 2020, EPSC2020-999, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-999, 2020.
