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Solar Wind Interaction and Pressure Balance at the Dayside Ionopause of Mars
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  • Feng Chu,
  • Firdevs Duru,
  • Zachary Girazian,
  • Robin Ramstad,
  • Jasper S. Halekas,
  • Donald A. Gurnett,
  • Xin Cao,
  • Andrew J. Kopf
Feng Chu
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Firdevs Duru
Coe College
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Zachary Girazian
The University of Iowa
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Robin Ramstad
University of Colorado Boulder
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Jasper S. Halekas
University of Iowa
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Donald A. Gurnett
University of Iowa
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Xin Cao
University of Iowa
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Andrew J. Kopf
University of Iowa
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Abstract

Due to the lower ionospheric thermal pressure and existence of the crustal magnetism at Mars, the Martian ionopause is expected to behave differently from the ionopause at Venus. We study the solar wind interaction and pressure balance at the ionopause of Mars using both in situ and remote sounding measurements from the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument on the Mars Express orbiter. We show that the magnetic pressure usually dominates the thermal pressure to hold off the solar wind in the ionopause at Mars, with only 13% unmagnetized ionopauses observed over a 11-year period. We also find that the ionopause altitude decreases as the normal component of the solar wind dynamic pressure increases. Moreover, our results show that the ionopause thickness at Mars is mainly determined by the ion gyromotion and equivalent to about 5.7 ion gyroradii.