Related papers: Measuring Mars Atmospheric Winds From Orbit
Space weather observations and modeling at Mars have begun but they must be significantly increased to support the future of Human Exploration on the Red Planet. A comprehensive space weather understanding of a planet without a global…
Airborne dust plays an active role in determining the thermal structure and chemical composition of the present-day atmosphere of Mars and possibly the planet's climate evolution over time through radiative--convective and cloud…
Characterizing the Martian atmosphere is an essential objective to understand its meteorology and its climate. The lower atmosphere (< 40 km) and middle atmosphere (40-80 km) of Mars appear dynamically coupled at much higher levels than in…
Understanding solar wind variability throughout the heliosphere is essential for fundamental space physics and future exploration of the Moon and Mars. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft has provided upstream…
Single spacecraft missions do not measure the pristine solar wind continuously because of the spacecrafts' orbital trajectory. The infrequent spatiotemporal cadence of measurement fundamentally limits conclusions about solar…
The objective of this White Paper submitted to ESA's Voyage 2050 call is to get a more holistic knowledge of the dynamics of the Martian plasma system from its surface up to the undisturbed solar wind outside of the induced magnetosphere.…
Looking at the Mars-solar wind interaction on a larger spatial scale than the near Mars region, the planet can be seen as an ion source interacting with the solar wind, in many ways like a comet, but with a smaller ion source region. Here…
A multi-institutional, multi-national science team will soon submit a NASA proposal to build a constellation of spacecraft to fly into the near-Earth solar wind in a swarm spanning a multitude of scales in order to obtain critically needed…
Mars, lacking an intrinsic dynamo, is an ideal laboratory to comparatively study induced magnetospheres, which can be found in other terrestrial bodies as well as comets. Additionally, Mars is of particular interest to further exploration…
When the solar wind interacts with the ionosphere of an unmagnetized planet, it induces currents that form an induced magnetosphere. These currents and their associated magnetic fields play a pivotal role in controlling the movement of…
For over a decade, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been recording measurements from the Martian surface as a part of the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. One quantity of interest has been the opacity of Mars's…
We apply a model for sand dunes to calculate formation of dunes on Mars under the present Martian atmospheric conditions. We find that different dune shapes as those imaged by Mars Global Surveyor could have been formed by the action of…
The physical origins of the observed interannual variability of weather and climate on Mars are poorly understood. In this paper we introduce a deterministic physical mechanism that may account for much of the variability of the circulation…
Atmospheric escape is an important process that influences the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A variety of physical mechanisms can contribute to escape from an atmosphere, including thermal escape, ion escape, photochemical escape, and…
We used attitude data from the Mars Ingenuity helicopter with a simple steady-state model to estimate windspeeds and directions at altitudes of 3 meters up to 24 meters, the first time winds at such altitudes have been probed on Mars. We…
Mars is the Solar System's canonical small, rocky planet that transitioned from early geologic activity and surface liquid water to a cold and arid planet with a thin, cold, CO$_2$-dominated atmosphere. The evolution of Mars, in the context…
In the distant future, humans will surely fly to Mars. Even today, probes and vehicles are carrying out measurements on the surface of Mars. However, most landings on Mars cannot be carried out with parachutes alone. Instead, landing…
Risk to human astronauts and interplanetary distance causing slow and limited communication drives scientists to pursue an autonomous approach to exploring distant planets, such as Mars. A portion of exploration of Mars has been conducted…
This roadmap outlines research pathways to determine whether Mars could be warmed with non-biological methods. It does not presuppose that warming Mars is desirable; its purpose is to identify what would need to be true for Mars to be…
We propose a revolutionary way of studying the sur-face of Mars using a wind-driven network of mobile sensors- Gone with the Wind ON_Mars (GOWON). GOWON is envisioned to be a scalable, 100% self energy-generating and distributed system that…