Bursty escape fluxes in plasma sheets of Mars and Venus

Dubinin, E.; Fräenz, M.; Woch, J.; Zhang, T. L.; Wei, Jie; Fedorov, A.; Barabash, S.; Lundin, R.

doi:10.1029/2011gl049883

Cited by 54 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Such bursts can be generated by different mechanisms but one suggestion is reconnection. Ions are seen moving alternately tailward and planetward, as the magnetic field changes in a way consistent with the spacecraft first entering and then leaving a magnetic island (Dubinin et al 2012). A clear example of the same geometry in presented by Zhang et al (2012).…”

Section: Magnetic Reconnection In the Magnetotailmentioning

confidence: 72%

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Solar Wind Interaction and Impact on the Venus Atmosphere

et al. 2017

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Venus has intrigued planetary scientists for decades because of its huge contrasts to Earth, in spite of its nickname of "Earth's Twin". Its invisible upper atmosphere and space environment are also part of the larger story of Venus and its evolution. In 60s to 70s, several missions (Venera and Mariner series) explored Venus-solar wind interaction regions. They identified the basic structure of the near-Venus space environment, for example, existence of the bow shock, magnetotail, ionosphere, as well as the lack of the intrinsic magnetic field. A huge leap in knowledge about the solar wind interaction with Venus was made possible by the 14-year long mission, Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO), launched in 1978. More recently, ESA's probe, Venus Express (VEX), was inserted into orbit in 2006, operated for 8 years.Owing to its different orbit from that of PVO, VEX made unique measurements in the polar and terminator regions, and probed the near-Venus tail for the first time. The near-tail hosts dynamic processes that lead to plasma energization. These processes in turn lead to the loss of ionospheric ions to space, slowly eroding the Venusian atmosphere. VEX carried an ion spectrometer with a moderate mass-separation capability and the observed ratio of the escaping hydrogen and oxygen ions in the wake indicates the stoichiometric loss of water from Venus. The structure and dynamics of the induced magnetosphere depends on the prevailing solar wind conditions. VEX studied the response of the magnetospheric system on different time scales. A plethora of waves was identified by the magnetometer on VEX; some of them were not previously observed by PVO. Proton cyclotron waves were seen far upstream of the bow shock, mirror mode waves were observed in magnetosheath and whistler mode waves, possibly generated by lightning discharges were frequently seen. VEX also encouraged renewed numerical modeling efforts, including fluid-type of models and particle-fluid hybrid type of models, describing the plasma interaction on scales ranging from ion gyro radius to the entire induced magnetosphere. In this review article, we review what has been found from space physics measurements around Venus (from the solar wind down to the ionopause), with a particular emphasis on updated results since the Venus Express mission. We conclude the article by a short discussion on the remaining open scientific questions and the future of this field.

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Section: Magnetic Reconnection In the Magnetotailmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Venus Express finally provided evidence that reconnection also occurs in the magnetotail of Venus (Zhang et al 2012;Dubinin et al 2012). Passing through the plasma sheet VEX observes spikes in electron and ion fluxes.…”

Section: Magnetic Reconnection In the Magnetotailmentioning

confidence: 98%

Solar Wind Interaction and Impact on the Venus Atmosphere

et al. 2017

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“…The observations of the CSs in the induced Martian magnetotail at different distances from the planet were reported in many studies based on data from different missions (e.g., Acuña et al, ; Dubinin et al, ; Dubinin & Fraenz, ; DiBraccio et al, ; Ferguson et al, ; Halekas et al, ; Harada et al, , ; Luhmann et al, ). It was shown that the dynamics of the Martian CS exhibits many features peculiar to the Earth's magnetotail CS: flapping motions (e.g., Dubinin et al, ; DiBraccio et al, , ), magnetic reconnection (Eastwood et al, ; Halekas et al, ; Harada et al, ) and associated plasma flow acceleration (Harada et al, ), and plasmoids formation (DiBraccio et al, ; Hara et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imprints of Quasi‐Adiabatic Ion Dynamics on the Current Sheet Structures Observed in the Martian Magnetotail by MAVEN

et al. 2017

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Numerous studies of the current sheets (CS) in the Earth's magnetotail showed that quasi‐adiabatic ion dynamics plays an important role in the formation of complicated multilayered current structures. In order to check whether the similar mechanisms operate in the Martian magnetotail, we analyzed 80 CS crossings using MAVEN measurements on the nightside of Mars at radial distances ~1.0–2.8RM. We found that CS structures experience similar dependence on the value of the normal component of the magnetic field at the neutral plane (BN) and on the ratio of the ion drift velocity outside the CS to the thermal velocity (VT/VD) as it was observed for the CSs in the Earth's magnetotail. For the small values of BN, a thin and intense CS embedded in a thicker one is observed. The half‐thickness L of this layer is ~30–100 km ≤ ρH+ (ρH+ is a gyroradius of thermal protons outside the CS). With the increase of BN, the L also increases up to several hundred kilometers (~ρO+, ρO2+), the current density decreases, and the embedding feature disappears. Our statistical analysis showed a good agreement between L values observed by MAVEN and the CS scaling obtained from the quasi‐adiabatic model, if the plasma characteristics in Martian CSs are used as input parameters. Thus, we may conclude that in spite of the differences in magnetic topology, ion composition, and plasma thermal characteristics observed in the Earth's and Martian magnetotails, similar quasi‐adiabatic mechanisms contribute to the formation of the CSs in the magnetotails of both planets.

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“…Bulk escape may be the primary source of plasma into the Martian plasma sheet, whereas ambipolar fields may be the primary driver for polar wind outflows of protons into the tail lobes (Dubinin et al 2011) and from other regions magnetically 'open' to interplanetary space. Magnetic reconnection may play a role in these loss mechanism (Eastwood et al 2008;Dubinin et al 2012). STATIC will provide the primary measurements of bulk ionospheric losses for the MAVEN mission, using composition to identify ionospheric components and resolving the transition from cold ionospheric ions to heated outflows.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

MAVEN SupraThermal and Thermal Ion Compostion (STATIC) Instrument

et al. 2015

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The MAVEN SupraThermal And Thermal Ion Compostion (STATIC) instrument is designed to measure the ion composition and distribution function of the cold Martian ionosphere, the heated suprathermal tail of this plasma in the upper ionosphere, and the pickup ions accelerated by solar wind electric fields. STATIC operates over an energy range of 0.1 eV up to 30 keV, with a base time resolution of 4 seconds. The instrument consists of a toroidal "top hat" electrostatic analyzer with a 360• × 90• field-of-view, combined with a time-of-flight (TOF) velocity analyzer with 22.5• resolution in the detection plane. The TOF combines a −15 kV acceleration voltage with ultra-thin carbon foils to resolve H + , He ++ , He + , O + , O + 2 , and CO + 2 ions. Secondary electrons from carbon foils are detected by microchannel plate detectors and binned into a variety of data products with varying energy, mass, angle, and time resolution. To prevent detector saturation when measuring cold ram ions at periapsis (∼ 10 11 eV/cm 2 s sr eV), while maintaining adequate sensitivity to resolve tenuous pickup ions at apoapsis (∼ 10 3 eV/cm 2 s sr eV), the sensor includes both mechanical and electrostatic attenuators that increase the dynamic range by a factor of 10 3 . This paper describes the instrument hardware, including several innovative improvements over previous TOF sensors, the ground calibrations of the sensor, the data products generated by the experiment, and some early measurements during cruise phase to Mars.

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Bursty escape fluxes in plasma sheets of Mars and Venus

Cited by 54 publications

References 28 publications

Solar Wind Interaction and Impact on the Venus Atmosphere

Solar Wind Interaction and Impact on the Venus Atmosphere

Imprints of Quasi‐Adiabatic Ion Dynamics on the Current Sheet Structures Observed in the Martian Magnetotail by MAVEN

MAVEN SupraThermal and Thermal Ion Compostion (STATIC) Instrument

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