Meteoric Layers in Planetary Atmospheres

Characteristic Features of V0 Layer in the Venus Ionosphere as Observed by the Akatsuki Orbiter: Evidence for Its Presence During the Local Noon and Post‐Sunset Conditions

“…The models predict metallic ion peaks in 120-130 km altitude range at Venus (Molina-Cuberos et al, 2008). The peak altitude of the V 0 layer, as observed by Akatsuki (Figure 1) and VEX (Pätzold et al, 2009), however, does not exceed 117 km during daytime.…”

“…In the case of the Martian ionosphere, using a statistical approach, Withers et al (2012) suggested that for high solar zenith angle conditions, the transport of dayside plasma could no longer be an important plasma source for the nightside ionosphere. The meteor ions, on the other hand, have a comparatively long lifetime (∼ in hours), and their possible presence has been predicted using models (Butler & Chamberlain, 1976;Molina-Cuberos et al, 2008). It may, therefore, be possible that the post-sunset peak plasma density at 120 km is the V 0 layer peak of meteoric origin.…”

“…The terrestrial ionosphere is known to have ions of meteoric origin (Grebowsky et al, 2002;Kopp, 1997;Molina-Cuberos et al, 2008). While reports on the presence of metallic ions in the Earth's ionosphere are in plenty (Kopp, 1997, and references therein), a compilation of previously observed meteoric layers in the ionosphere at Venus and Mars is given in Withers et al (2013).…”

“…in the atmosphere. Several models have been developed to understand the presence of meteoric ions in the planetary ionosphere (McAuliffe & Christou, 2006;Molina-Cuberos et al, 2008). The balance between the production and loss processes, including the effect of diffusion, produces an ion layer in the ablation region (Grebowsky et al, 2002).…”

Discovery of Suprathermal Ionospheric Origin Fe+ in and Near Earth's Magnetosphere

“…Incoming interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) readily produce layers of metal atoms ions in the lower ionosphere, specifically Fe and Fe +1 herein (Plane, 2012; Plane et al, 2015). Ionospheric metal layers, observed in situ at Earth (Grebowsky & Aikin, 2002) and Mars (Grebowsky et al, 2017) are also remotely detected at some and expected at most planets in our solar system (Grebowsky et al,, 2002; Molina‐Cuberos et al, 2008) except possibly at Mercury, whose tenuous and variable atmosphere/exosphere probably lacks sufficient density and structure to support even sporadic layers in spite of its strong intrinsic dipole magnetic field. Isolated metal layers at Mars, which has patches of remanent planetary magnetic field (Andrews et al, 2015), mimic Earth's sporadic metal E layers (Grebowsky et al, 2017), demonstrating the ubiquity of this process.…”