Martian aurora

Olivier Witasse (1) , François Leblanc (2) , J. Winningham (3) , R. A. Frahm (3) , D. Brain (4) , Jean Lilensten (5) , P.-L. Blelly (6) , Jean-Loup Bertaux (2) , Jasper S. Halekas (4)

1 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
2 SA - Service d'aéronomie
3 Space Science and Engineering Division [San Antonio]
4 SSL - Space Sciences Laboratory [Berkeley]
5 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie de Grenoble
6 LPCE - Laboratoire de physique et chimie de l'environnement

Aurora have been observed for the first time (in 2004) at Mars by the UV spectrograph SPICAM aboard Mars Express. This result was published in Bertaux et al. (Nature, 435,790,2005). What was observed is a significant increase of the signal for 7 seconds. The spectrum contains some features typical of a dayside spectrum: CO2+ and CO bands and O line. In addition, the location of the emission correlates very well with an area of strong crustal magnetic field . The analysis of this event led to the conclusion that the emission was produced by electrons with an energy distribution peaking at a few tens of eVs. Since then, a few new aurora candidates have been found in the SPICAM data set. We describe here the available observations, and discuss the electron fluxes that are needed to reproduce the measurements.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Olivier Witasse, François Leblanc, J. Winningham, R. A. Frahm, D. Brain, et al.. Martian aurora. European Planetary Science Congress 2006, 2006, Berlin, Germany. ⟨insu-00358092⟩