Future Missions Related to the Determination of the Elemental and Isotopic Composition of Earth, Moon and the Terrestrial Planets

Abstract

In this chapter, we review the contribution of space missions to the determination of the elemental and isotopic composition of Earth, Moon and the terrestrial planets, with special emphasis on currently planned and future missions. We show how these missions are going to significantly contribute to, or sometimes revolutionise, our understanding of planetary evolution, from formation to the possible emergence of life. We start with the Earth, which is a unique habitable body with actual life, and that is strongly related to its atmosphere. The new wave of missions to the Moon is then reviewed, which are going to study its formation history, the structure and dynamics of its tenuous exosphere and the interaction of the Moon’s surface and exosphere with the different sources of plasma and radiation of its environment, including the solar wind and the escaping Earth’s upper atmosphere. Missions to study the noble gas atmospheres of the terrestrial planets, Venus and Mars, are then examined. These missions are expected to trace the evolutionary paths of these two noble gas atmospheres, with a special emphasis on understanding the effect of atmospheric escape on the fate of water. Future missions to these planets will be key to help us establishing a comparative view of the evolution of climates and habitability at Earth, Venus and Mars, one of the most important and challenging open questions of planetary science. Finally, as the detection and characterisation of exoplanets is currently revolutionising the scope of planetary science, we review the missions aiming to characterise the internal structure and the atmospheres of these exoplanets.

Martian Crustal Field Influence on O+ and O2+ Escape as Measured by MAVEN

“…Our results may hold implications toward the broader question of whether global magnetic dynamos are important for planetary habitability. In the context of planetary evolution, global magnetic fields are often described as critical for the retention of a planet's atmosphere, but it is currently unclear whether this is the case (Brain et al., 2013; Dandouras et al., 2020; Egan et al., 2019; Moore & Horwitz, 2007; Strangeway et al., 2010). We may be able to treat crustal fields as a microcosm through which we can characterize the effects of global‐scale fields, and investigations of the kind presented here represent a significant step toward that goal.…”

Martian crustal field influence on O+ and O2+ escape as measured by MAVEN

“…Our results may hold implications toward the broader question of whether global magnetic dynamos are important for planetary habitability. In the context of planetary evolution, global magnetic fields are often described as critical for the retention of a planet's atmosphere, but it is currently unclear whether this is the case (Brain et al, 2013;Dandouras et al, 2020;Egan et al, 2019;Moore & Horwitz, 2007;Strangeway et al, 2010). We may be able to treat crustal fields as a microcosm through which we can characterize the effects of global-scale fields, and investigations of the kind presented here represent a significant step toward that goal.…”

Lower-thermosphere–ionosphere (LTI) quantities: current status of measuring techniques and models

“…Ion and neutral mass spectrometry technique has been systematically used also for the study of other planetary upper atmospheres in our solar system (Waite et al, 2004;Balsiger et al, 2007;Wurz et al, 2012;Mahaffy et al, 2015). However, after the Dynamics Explorer-2 (DE-2) mission in 1983 no other successful neutral mass spectrometer measurements have been obtained in the terrestrial thermosphere (Dandouras et al, 2018(Dandouras et al, , 2020Sarris et al, 2020).…”

“…It is generally displayed as 2D maps based on networks of ground-based receivers (Coster et al, 1992). Over the years, TEC has successfully been used for studies of the response of the ionosphere to geomagnetic storms (Danilov, 2013;Mendillo, 2006), but also to study dynamics of ionospheric structures such as polar cap patches or travelling ionospheric disturbances (Tsugawa et al, 2004;Durgonics et al, 2017). In numerical simulations which model the LTI, TEC is naturally obtained by integrating the computed electron density along a (slanted or vertical) path.…”