Effect of the lateral exospheric transport on the horizontal hydrogen distribution at the exobase of Mars

Jean-Yves Chaufray (1) , Roger Yelle (2) , F. González-Galindo (3) , François Forget (3) , Miguel Lopez-Valverde (4) , François Leblanc (1) , Ronan Modolo (1)

1 HELIOS - LATMOS
2 University of Arizona
3 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
4 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía

We describe the horizontal distribution of hydrogen density at the exobase of Mars as simulated by coupling a 3D GCM with an exospheric balistic model, taking into account the flight balistic time of the exopheric hydrogen atoms. Such a description is more realistic than the assumptions used in our past study [4]. We simulate 4 Martian rotations at three different seasons. The horizontal variations of the hydrogen density at the exobase are reduced when the exospheric balistic transport is included compared to our previous simulations.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Jean-Yves Chaufray, Roger Yelle, F. González-Galindo, François Forget, Miguel Lopez-Valverde, et al.. Effect of the lateral exospheric transport on the horizontal hydrogen distribution at the exobase of Mars. European Planetary Science Congress 2017 (ESPC 2017), Sep 2017, Riga, Latvia. pp.EPSC2017-252-1. ⟨insu-01597522⟩