A Statistical Understanding of Mars' Draped Magnetic Field Configuration with MAVEN

Mars' crustal magnetic fields can reach thousands of kilometers over the surface of the planet. These crustal fields are understood as the remnants of a once active planetary dynamo. How, and if, the loss of the active dynamo correlates with atmospheric loss is an active area of inquiry and studying the current solar wind interaction provides essential hints to Mars' past. Mars' remaining crustal fields are located primarily in the southern hemisphere and rotate with the planet. These crustal fields in addition to a conducting ionosphere, present a complex obstacle to the solar wind. In the northern hemisphere, the solar wind magnetic field drapes over the conducting ionosphere, similar to the situation at Venus and Titan. Unlike these planetary bodies, the crustal fields at Mars are thought to significantly distort the magnetic configuration from dayside to nightside, including in the magnetotail (e.g. DiBraccio et al., 2018, Xu et al., 2020) as compared to a purely ionospheric interaction. Observations of the current day magnetic environment around Mars are now accessible from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) which provides a comprehensive set of plasma and field measurements over wide ranges of altitude, solar zenith angles, and local times. MAVEN observations now allow for the lowest altitudes of this complex interaction to be characterized in detail. In this work, we present a statistical analysis of multiple factors to investigate how this configuration responds to external influences, such as upstream solar wind conditions and interplanetary magnetic field orientation. This allows us to provide a system-wide perspective by relating the dayside draping configuration to the magnetotail. Mars provides a unique system for studying induced fields at unmagnetized bodies and studying the configuration of the low-altitude magnetic field provides a better picture of atmospheric escape stretching from the dayside to the tail.