Mars: A Richly Complicated Obstacle to the Solar Wind: Chapman Conference on the Solar Wind Interaction With Mars; San Diego, California, 22–25 January 2008

Abstract

Although studies of the solar wind interaction with Mars (SWIM) date back to the mid‐1960s, whether Mars possessed a global magnetic field remained uncertain until 1997. We now know that Mars lacks a measurable dynamo; however, it has intense, localized regions of magnetization tied to its crust. With this patchy magnetic field, the solar wind interacts directly with the upper atmosphere of Mars, driving structural and compositional variations and providing energy for atmospheric escape to space. These processes may have played an important role in the long‐term evolution of the Martian climate.