Coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere, combined with loss of gas from the upper atmosphere to space, likely contributed to the thin, cold, dry atmosphere of modern Mars. To help understand ongoing ion loss to space, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft made comprehensive measurements of the Mars upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind during an interplanetary coronal mass ejection impact in March 2015. Responses include changes in the bow shock and magnetosheath, formation of widespread diffuse aurora, and enhancement of pick-up ions. Observations and models both show an enhancement in escape rate of ions to space during the event. Ion loss during solar events early in Mars history may have been a major contributor to the long-term evolution of the Mars atmosphere.

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet's birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25-7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and welldefined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phasecurve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10-100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H 2 O, CO 2 , CH 4 NH 3 , HCN, H 2 S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performedusing conservative estimates of mission performance and a

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Mars dayside thermospheric temperature and scale height trends were examined using measurements from the Neutral Gas Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) and the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) on the Mars Atmosphere Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. Average scale heights (over 150–180 km for solar zenith angles ≤75°) from several different sampling periods were obtained from each instrument. NGIMS and IUVS scale height trends were found to be in good agreement, with both showing scale heights decreasing after perihelion and reaching a low value near aphelion (13.6 to 9.4 km). Between these two seasonal extremes, the temperature decreased by ∼70 K (from 240 to 170 K). These trends were also analyzed with respect to the changing solar flux reaching the planet, using the Lyman alpha irradiance measured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Monitor (EUVM) on MAVEN. Scale heights responded strongly to the changing solar flux. During this part of the MAVEN mission (October 2014 to May 2016), it was concluded that over longer timescales (at least several months), dayside thermospheric temperatures are chiefly driven by changing solar forcing, although it is the effects of changing heliocentric distance rather than changing solar activity which seem to have the greatest impact. Furthermore, effects of solar forcing were not observed on shorter timescales (less than a month), suggesting local wave effects may dominate solar forcing on these timescales. Finally, temperatures from two NGIMS sampling periods were compared to temperatures from the Mars Global Ionosphere‐Thermosphere Model (M‐GITM) and found to be in good agreement.

We report a comprehensive study of Mars dayglow observations focusing on upper atmospheric structure and seasonal variability. We analyzed 744 vertical brightness profiles comprised of ∼109,300 spectra obtained with the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) aboard the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) satellite. The dayglow emission spectra show features similar to previous UV measurements at Mars. We find a significant drop in thermospheric scale height and temperature between LS = 218° and LS = 337–352°, attributed primarily to the decrease in solar activity and increase in heliocentric distance. We report the detection of a second, low‐altitude peak in the emission profile of OI 297.2 nm, confirmation of the prediction that the absorption of solar Lyman alpha emission is an important energy source there. The CO2+ UV doublet peak intensity is well correlated with simultaneous observations of solar 17–22 nm irradiance at Mars.