A Comparative Study of Ionospheric Response to Solar Flares at Earth, Venus, and Mars

Abstract

It has been widely recognized that the ionosphere of the terrestrial planet responds greatly to the enhanced X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation during solar flares. However, little attention has been paid to the comparative study of the ionospheric response between different Earth-like planets. In this work, we investigate the responses of the ionospheres of Earth, Venus, and Mars to the 2017 September 6 solar flares, with self-consistent planetary ionospheric models. The result shows that the electron density increases significantly in the relatively low ionosphere region, and its maximum relative change displays profound differences between planets. The ion temperatures at Earth and Venus share a similar response to flares, but differ from those at Mars, which relates to the background atmospheric conditions. For the electron temperature response to the X9.3 flare, at Earth it increases with a maximum magnitude of 250 K, in contrast to the decrease of ∼45 K at Venus and ∼40 K at Mars. The vertical plasma velocity at all three planets exhibits enhancement during solar flares. As a result, the upward flux increases by 2.16 × 1012 m−2 s−1 at 800 km of Earth, 3.79 × 1010 m−2 s−1, and 8.45 × 109 m−2 s−1 at 400 km of Venus and Mars. This is the first self-consistent simulation of the flare-induced enhancement of upward plasma flow at Venus and Mars.