Thermal Structure of the Martian Upper Mesosphere/Lower Thermosphere From MAVEN/IUVS Stellar Occultations

Autor: Sumedha Gupta, Roger V. Yelle, Nicholas M. Schneider, Sonal K. Jain, Francisco González‐Galindo, Loic Verdier, Ashwin S. Braude, Franck Montmessin, Majd Mayyasi, Justin Deighan, Shannon Curry
Přispěvatelé: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España), European Commission
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 127
ISSN: 2169-9100
2169-9097
DOI: 10.1029/2022je007534
Popis: We report the first detailed study of the diurnal thermal structure of upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere (∼80 to 160 km) of Mars from stellar occultation observations by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) aboard the NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. Due to stray light contamination, analyses of this data set to date have been confined to the nighttime events. This study makes use of a revised algorithm for removal of stray light from occultation spectra to retrieve the dayside events as well. The dayside is observed to be warmer than the nightside, with the maximum day/night difference of ∼30 K in the lower thermosphere, ∼20 K around the mesopause, with little diurnal variations at lower altitudes. This is consistent with the radiative time constant which is of the order of 1 Mars day in the urn:x-wiley:21699097:media:jgre22064:jgre22064-math-0001 to urn:x-wiley:21699097:media:jgre22064:jgre22064-math-0002 Pa region. The data also shows that the regions at pressure less than urn:x-wiley:21699097:media:jgre22064:jgre22064-math-0003 Pa are under strong solar control with no prominent migrating tidal signatures. In contrast, on Earth, the radiative time constant near the mesopause is ∼10 Earth days and the temperature variations due to tides are quite large. The Mars Climate Database shows a diurnal trend opposite to the data in the mesosphere, with the dayside mesopause predicted to be cooler than the nightside by ∼10 K along with signatures of a vertically propagating tide. The IUVS data set provides an unprecedented constraint on the structure of the Martian mesosphere. © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
The MAVEN mission is supported by NASA through the Mars Exploration Program in association with the University of Colorado and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. F.G.-G. is funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación and EC FEDER funds under project RTI2018-100920-J-I00, and acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709).
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: