The Martian Atmosphere as a Meteoroid Detector

Abstract

We investigate the plausibility of detecting meteors from the surface of Mars. We estimate the flux of high-speed photographic meteoroids at the orbit of Mars to be ∼50% that at Earth. Because the atmospheric densities of the Earth and Mars are comparable at a height of 120 km, close to where meteor ablation occurs on Earth, we also expect martian meteors to ablate at heights similar to those on Earth. By numerical integration we have modeled the intensity of an “asteroidal” particle and a “cometary” particle as they enter the atmosphere, using particle masses in the range 10−8to 102g. We conclude that high-speed (≳30 km sec−1) meteoroids will have the same magnitude in both atmospheres; lower speed meteoroids will be dimmer in Mars' atmosphere. We suggest that future missions to Mars should include meteor observation programs which would permit direct measurements of the meteoroid complex in another region of the solar system as well as providing important information on the structure and time variability of the martian atmosphere.