EPP

The Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer (MINPA) is one of the three scientific instruments onboard the Tianwen-1 orbiter to investigate the Martian space environment. During Tianwen-1’s transfer orbit to Mars, the MINPA was switched on to measure the solar wind ions. Here, we present the first results of the MINPA observations in the solar wind. During cruise, nearly half of the MINPA ion field-of-view (FOV) was blocked by the lander capsule; thus only the solar-wind ions with azimuthal speeds pointing towards the unblocked FOV sectors could be detected. We perform a detailed comparison of the MINPA’s solar wind observations with data from Earth-based missions when MINPA reached its count-rate peak, finding a general consistency of the ion moments between them. The blocking effect due to the lander is evaluated quantitatively under varying solar-wind velocity conditions. Despite the blocking effect, the MINPA’s solar wind measurements during the transfer orbit suggest a good performance.

Whistler-mode chorus waves are regarded as an important acceleration mechanism contributing to the formation of relativistic and ultra-relativistic electrons in the Jovian radiation belts. Quantitative determination of the chorus wave driven electron scattering effect in the Jovian magnetosphere requires detailed information of both ambient magnetic field and plasma density and wave spectral property, which however cannot be always readily acquired from observations of existed missions to Jupiter. We therefore perform a comprehensive analysis of the sensitivity of chorus induced electron scattering rates to ambient magnetospheric and wave parameters in the Jovian radiation belts to elaborate to which extent the diffusion coefficients depend on a number of key input parameters. It is found that quasi-linear electron scattering rates by chorus can be strongly affected by the ambient magnetic field intensity, the wave latitudinal coverage, and the peak frequency and bandwidth of the wave spectral distribution in the Jovian magnetosphere, while they only rely slightly on the background plasma density profile and the peak wave normal angle, especially when the wave emissions are confined at lower latitudes. Given the chorus wave amplitude, chorus induced electron scattering rates strongly depend on Jovian L-shell to exhibit a tendency approximately proportional to L_J³. Our comprehensive analysis explicitly demonstrates the importance of reliable information of both the ambient magnetospheric state and wave distribution property to understanding the dynamic electron evolution in the Jovian radiation belts and therefore has implications for future mission planning to explore the extreme particle radiation environment of Jupiter and its satellites.

The Venusian dayside ionosphere, similar to other planetary ionospheres, is produced primarily by ionization of its neutral upper atmosphere due to solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation. It has become clear that the expansion of the ionosphere may be strongly controlled by the EUV level, as exhibited in data collected by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) during one solar cycle (1978–1992). However, the EUV-dependence of the Venusian dayside ionopause altitude, which defines the outer boundary of the ionosphere, remains obscure because the PVO crossed the dayside ionopause only during the solar maximum; its periapsis lifted too high during the solar minimum. Recently, during the period 2006–2014, which included the longest and quietest solar minimum of the past several decades, Venus Express (VEX) provided measurements of the photoelectron boundary (PEB) over the northern high-latitude region. Since the photoelectron boundary is closely related to the ionopause, we have an opportunity to analyze the EUV effect on the dayside ionopause by combining PVO and VEX observations. We have evaluated and then reduced the orbit bias effect in data from both PVO and VEX, and then used the results to derive a relationship between solar EUV level and the dayside ionopause altitude. We find that the dayside ionopause altitude increases as the solar EUV level increases, which is consistent with theoretical expectations.

Proton cyclotron waves (PCWs) can be generated by ion pickup of Martian exospheric particles in the solar wind. The solar wind ion pickup process is highly dependent on the “IMF cone angle” — the angle between the solar wind velocity and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), which also plays an important role in the generation of PCWs. Using data from 2.15 Martian years of magnetic field measurements collected by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, we have identified 3307 upstream PCW events. Their event number distribution decreases exponentially with their duration. A statistical investigation of the effects of IMF cone angle on the amplitudes and occurrence rates of PCWs reveals a slight tendency of PCWs’ amplitudes to decrease with increasing IMF cone angle. The relationship between the amplitude and IMF cone angle is weak, with a correlation coefficient r = –0.3. We also investigated the influence of IMF cone angle on the occurrence rate of PCWs and found that their occurrence rate is particularly high for intermediate IMF cone angles (~18°–42°) even though highly oblique IMF orientation occurs most frequently in the upstream region of the Martian bow shock. We also conclude that these variabilities are not artefacts of temporal coverage biases in MAVEN sampling. Our results demonstrate that whereas IMF cone angle strongly influences the occurrence of PCWs, IMF cone angle may also weakly modulate their amplitudes in the upstream region of Mars.

Doubly charged positive ions (dications) are an important component of planetary ionospheres because of the large energy required for their formation. Observations of these ions are exceptionally difficult due to their low abundances; until now, only atomic dications have been detected. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) measurements made on board the recent Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission provide the first opportunity for decisive detection of molecular dications, CO₂⁺⁺ in this case, in a planetary upper atmosphere. The NGIMS data reveal a dayside averaged CO₂⁺⁺ distribution declining steadily from 5.6 cm⁻³ at 160 km to below 1 cm⁻³ above 200 km. The dominant CO₂⁺⁺ production mechanisms are double photoionization of CO₂ below 190 km and single photoionization of CO₂⁺ at higher altitudes; CO₂⁺⁺ destruction is dominated by natural dissociation, but reactions with atmospheric CO₂ and O become important below 160 km. Simplified photochemical model calculations are carried out and reasonably reproduce the data at low altitudes within a factor of 2 but underestimate the data at high altitudes by a factor of 4. Finally, we report a much stronger solar control of the CO₂⁺⁺ density than of the CO₂⁺ density .

Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global dipolar magnetic field but is dominated by patches of a remnant crustal magnetic field. In 2021, the Chinese Mars Rover will land on the surface of Mars and measure the surface magnetic field along a moving path within the possible landing region of 20°W–50°W, 20°N–30°N. One scientific target of the Rover is to monitor the variation in surface remnant magnetic fields and reveal the source of the ionospheric current. An accurate local crustal field model is thus considered necessary as a field reference. Here we establish a local crust field model for the candidate landing site based on the joint magnetic field data set from Mars Global Explorer (MGS) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) data combined. The model is composed of 1,296 dipoles, which are set on three layers but at different buried depths. The application of the dipole model to the joint data set allowed us to calculate the optimal parameters of their dipoles. The calculated results demonstrate that our model has less fitting error than two other state-of-the art global crustal field models, which would indicate a more reasonable assessment of the surface crustal field from our model.

Previous studies indicate that, in the Jovian magnetosphere, the long-term trend of the radial profile of relativistic electron intensities is primarily shaped by slow radial diffusion. However, measurements by the Galileo spacecraft reveal the existence of transient increases in MeV electron intensities well above the ambient distribution. It is unclear how common such transient enhancements are, and to which dynamic processes in Jupiter's magnetosphere their occurrence is linked. We investigate the radial distributions of $>$11 MeV and $>$1 MeV electron intensities from $9R_{J}$ to $40R_{J}$ ($R_{J}=71492\;{\rm{km}}$ denotes the Jovian radius), measured by the Galileo spacecraft from 1996 to 2002. We find transient enhancements of MeV electrons during seven Galileo crossings, mostly occurring around ~20R_J. An apparent dawn-dusk asymmetry of their occurrence is resolved, with a majority of events discovered at dawn. This dawn-dusk asymmetry, as well as the average recurrence time scale of a few days, implies a potential relationship between the MeV electron transients and the storm-like dynamics in the middle and outer magnetosphere detected using a variety of Galileo, Juno and remote sensing aurora observations. We suggest that the observations of some of these transients in the inner magnetosphere may result from a synergy between the convective transport by a large-scale dawn-dusk electric field and the sources provided by injections in the middle magnetosphere.

The planet Earth is an integrated system, in which its multi-spheres are coupled, from the space to the inner core. Whether the space environment in short to long terms has been controlled by the earth’s interior process is contentious. In the past several decades, space weather and space climate have been extensively studied based on either observation data measured directly by man-made instruments or ancient data inferred indirectly from some historical medium of past thousands of years. The acquired knowledge greatly helps us to understand the dynamic processes in the space environment of modern Earth, which has a strong magnetic dipole and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. However, no data is available for ancient space weather and climate (>5 ka). Here, we propose to take the advantage of " space-diversity” to build a " generalized planetary space family”, to reconcile the ancient space environment evolution of planet Earth from modern observations of other planets in our solar system. Such a method could also in turn give us a valuable insight into other planets’ evolution.

Electron density is a key parameter to characterize Martian ionospheric structure and dynamics. Based on the ephemeris and auxiliary information derived from the Spacecraft, Planet, Instruments, C-matrix, and Events (SPICE) toolkit, we calculated the bending angle of signal path from the frequency residuals measured by the Mars Express Radio Science Experiment (MaRS) of the Mars Express (MEX) mission under the assumption of a spherically symmetric ionosphere. We stratified the ionosphere into layers and assumed a linear change of bending angle between layers, to derive profiles in radial distance of refractivity with the optimized parameters of upper integral limit of 4890 km and baseline correction boundary of 3690 km. Meanwhile, we also compared the retrieved electron density profiles between the frequency residuals of the single-frequency and differential Doppler of the dual-frequency. In total, ~640 electron density profiles of Martian ionosphere between April 2004 and April 2015 were retrieved successfully. There are 24 profiles identified manually that exhibit an additional sporadic layer occurrence below the normal two-layers. We also found that the peak altitude of this layer increases with the main peak altitude.

Cassini observations over the past ten years have revealed that Titan possesses a chemically complex ionosphere. In this study, we investigate the relative contributions of different ion species to the total ion escape on Titan, by dividing all ion species probed by the Cassini Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) into six groups according to their mass-to-charge ratios (M/Z). For the three lightest ion groups, with characteristic M/Z of 22, 41, and 52 daltons , the observed scale heights tend to be lower than the scale heights predicted by assuming diffusive equilibrium; for the three heavier groups, observed and predicted scale heights are in general agreement, implying that most ion escape from Titan is by relatively light species, with M/Z < 60 daltons. A diffusion model is constructed to describe the density distribution of each ion group in regions where the effect of ionospheric chemistry could be neglected. The data model comparison predicts an optimal total ion escape rate of 3.1×10²⁴ s^–1, of which more than 99% is contributed by relatively light ions with M/Z < 32 daltons.