Solar wind interaction with Mars and Venus during solar activity cycle.
Abstract
Analysis and comparison of results of the Phobos 2 mission are carried out. The features of the boundaries observed in the interaction region of the SW flow with comet Halley and Venus and Mars during the periods of minimum and maximum of solar activity are presented. It is shown that all these bodies of the Solar system are similar in some aspects. They have one common feature - the cometopause like chemical boundary. However this cometopause like chemical boundary is prominent near the planets when there is high solar wind dynamic pressure during solar maximum. The boundary detected by Phobos 2 near the planet Mars and identified as the magnetopause or the planetopause seems to be not the real impenetrable obstacle where the force balance with the SW dynamic pressure takes place. It has some features which are similar to the cometopause of comet Halley and the cometopause like chemical boundary observed at Venus during the periods of high SW dynamic pressure in the vicinity of the solar maximum. Phobos 2 had revealed the features of the SW/Mars interaction which are even more cometary like than these observed at Venus. The obstacle to the SW flow at Mars can be both the magnetospheric like and the ionospheric like during the maximum of solar activity.
- Publication:
-
Kosmicheskie Issledovaniia
- Pub Date:
- May 1992
- Bibcode:
- 1992KosIs..30..396B
- Keywords:
-
- Mars Atmosphere;
- Plasma Interactions;
- Solar Activity;
- Solar Planetary Interactions;
- Solar Wind;
- Venus Atmosphere;
- Planetary Ionospheres;
- Planetary Magnetospheres;
- Satellite Observation;
- Lunar and Planetary Exploration