Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

On the evening time exosphere of Mars: Result from MENCA aboard Mars Orbiter Mission

2016; American Geophysical Union; Volume: 43; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/2016gl067707

1944-8007

Anil Bhardwaj, Smitha V. Thampi, Tirtha Pratim Das, M. B. Dhanya, Neha Naik, Dinakar Prasad Vajja, P. Pradeepkumar, P. Sreelatha, Gogulapati Supriya, J. K. Abhishek, S. V. Mohankumar, R. Satheesh Thampi, Vipin K. Yadav, B. Sundar, Amarnath Nandi, G. Padma Padmanabhan, A. V. Aliyas,

Space Exploration and Technology

Abstract The Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) aboard the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is a quadrupole mass spectrometer which provides in situ measurement of the composition of the low‐latitude Martian neutral exosphere. The altitude profiles of the three major constituents, i.e., amu 44 (CO 2 ), amu 28 (N 2 + CO), and amu 16 (O) in the Martian exosphere during evening (close to sunset terminator) hours are reported using MENCA observations from four orbits of MOM during late December 2014, when MOM's periapsis altitude was the lowest. The altitude range of the observation encompasses the diffusively separated region much above the well‐mixed atmosphere. The transition from CO 2 to O‐dominated region is observed near 270 km. The mean exospheric temperature derived using these three mass numbers is 271 ± 5 K. These first observations corresponding to the Martian evening hours would help to provide constraints to the thermal escape models.