Effects in the Lower Ionosphere during the Large Dust Storm of 2018
Abstract
The first large dust storm at Mars observed by the NASA MAVEN mission occurred in the summer of 2018 and, at the time of writing, has been active for more than one month. There have been many suggestions that the temperature in the upper atmosphere will change due to the change in opacity of the lower atmosphere and a corresponding increase in solar IR absorption. On the MAVEN mission, the ionosphere is monitored by several methods including the Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) instrument. In this presentation, the evaluation of electron temperature with the progress of the dust storm will be discussed. Next, ionospheric density, which is closely coupled to the neutral density, will be presented in light of the changes in the neutral atmosphere. In addition to monitoring the ionosphere, the LPW also observed dust densities above 150 km. This sparse data set will be evaluated for presence of dust in the upper atmosphere which might be associated with the dust from the storm (i.e. silica particles impacting the spacecraft).
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.P43J3866T
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 6225 Mars;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTSDE: 5405 Atmospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETSDE: 5445 Meteorology;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS