Upper limits for the Martian exospheric number density during the Planet B/Nozomi mission

Abstract

Dissociative recombination (DR) of ionospheric O 2 + ions is an important source of suprathermal atomic oxygen in the exosphere as previous studies about the Martian upper atmosphere have shown. Because of the weaker gravitational attraction a hot oxygen corona on Mars should be denser than that observed on Venus. Since the most important mechanism for the production of the hot oxygen atoms in the Martian exosphere is DR, we investigated the variability of this production mechanism depending of solar activity. The Japanese Nozomi spacecraft will have the possibility to detect with the neutral mass spectrometer (NMS) for the first time in-situ the theoretically predicted hot oxygen corona on Mars, if the corona number density above the cold background atmosphere is of the order of 10,000 cm −3 . Due to a problem in the propulsion system Nozomi failed its planned arrival rendevouzs with Mars in October 1999 and will, therefore, arrive at the red planet not before January 2004. Solar activity will reach its maximum in 2001, so the related production rate of hot oxygen atoms will be in the medium range during the new arrival date of Nozomi. We used the ionospheric profiles from the Viking mission for low solar activity conditions ( F 10.7≈70) and the Mariner 9 mission with a solar activity of about 120 for medium solar wind activity. The latter is comparable to the level we expect for the Mars arrival of Nozomi. The resulting influence of the hot oxygen corona number density distribution was calculated with a Monte Carlo technique. This technique is used to compute a hot particle density distribution function. We studied the atomic diffusion process in the Martian atmosphere by simulating the collision probability, particle direction and energy loss after collisions by generating random numbers. Compared to previous studies we have improved the Monte Carlo model by using more and smaller altitude steps and more detailed treatment of particles with a temporary downward motion. This has resulted in an increased amount of collisions and a shift to lower energies in the energy spectrum. Our results show that the hot oxygen component should begin to dominate above the cold background atmosphere at an altitude of about 500 km above the Martian surface. The NMS instrument on board of Nozomi should detect the hot oxygen component after its arrival at Mars in January 2004, at an altitude of about 600 km above the Martian surface. Since the solar activity will decrease during the mission the measurements during the first orbits will be the most significant ones. The first in-situ measurements of the hot oxygen number density would be very important for adjusting atmospheric escape models by separating ballistic, satellite and escape trajectories of the hot oxygen atoms, which are significant for studies of the evolution and solar wind interaction of the Martian atmosphere.