Bibliographic Details
| Title: |
A Technique for Retrieving the Exospheric Number Density Distribution from Pickup Ion Ring Distributions |
| Authors: |
Kei Masunaga, Naoki Terada, François Leblanc, Yuki Harada, Takuya Hara, Shotaro Sakai, Shoichiro Yokota, Kanako Seki, Atsushi Yamazaki, James. P. McFadden, Tomohiro Usui |
| Source: |
The Planetary Science Journal, Vol 5, Iss 8, p 180 (2024) |
| Publisher Information: |
IOP Publishing, 2024. |
| Publication Year: |
2024 |
| Collection: |
LCC:Astronomy |
| Subject Terms: |
Mars, Pickup ions, Planetary magnetospheres, Exosphere, Solar wind, Astronomy, QB1-991 |
| More Details: |
Ion pickup by the solar wind is ubiquitous in space plasma. Because pickup ions are originally produced by ionization of an exospheric neutral atmosphere, their measurements contain information on the exospheric neutral abundance. Here we established a method to retrieve exospheric number densities, by analyzing the ion velocity distribution functions of pickup ions measured by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft. We successfully retrieved exospheric oxygen density distributions at altitudes ranging from 1000 to 10,000 km around Mars except for the vicinity of the bow shock. This method can be applied to other space missions to study the upper atmosphere of planets, moons, and other small bodies in our solar system, where pickup ions exist. |
| Document Type: |
article |
| File Description: |
electronic resource |
| Language: |
English |
| ISSN: |
2632-3338 |
| Relation: |
https://doaj.org/toc/2632-3338 |
| DOI: |
10.3847/PSJ/ad65d4 |
| Access URL: |
https://doaj.org/article/22d632d4dbcc4701a2a8bd5b32355a4e |
| Accession Number: |
edsdoj.22d632d4dbcc4701a2a8bd5b32355a4e |
| Database: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
