Mars' Ionospheric Interaction With Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring's Coma at Their Closest Approach as Seen by Mars Express

Sánchez–Cano, Beatriz; Lester, M.; Witasse, Olivier; Morgan, D. D.; Opgenoorth, H. J.; Andrews, D. J.; Blelly, Pierre‐Louis; Cowley, S. W. H.; Kopf, A. J.; Leblanc, François; Espley, J. R.; Cardesín‐Moinelo, Alejandro

doi:10.1029/2019ja027344

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(167 reference statements)

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“…Of particular interest was the interaction between Mars's atmosphere and the comet coma's dust and gas. The energetic particles mentioned above would have been deposited in the planet's atmosphere, as well as pickup ions such as O + that were detected for ∼10 hours near the planet (Sánchez-Cano et al 2020). A transient ionized layer at altitudes of 80-100 km was present in the hours after closest approach, resulting from the shower of cometary dust (Gurnett et al 2015).…”

Section: C/2013 A1 At Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and Future Comet Missions

Snodgrass¹,

Feaga²,

Jones³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We review the history of spacecraft encounters with comets, concentrating on those that took place in the recent past, since the publication of the Comets II book. This includes the flyby missions Stardust and Deep Impact, and their respective extended missions, the Rosetta rendezvous mission, and serendipitous encounters. While results from all of these missions can be found throughout this book, this chapter focuses on the questions that motivated each mission, the technologies that were required to answer these questions, and where each mission opened new areas to investigate. There remain a large number of questions that will require future technologies and space missions to answer; we also describe planned next steps and routes forward that may be pursued by missions that have yet to be selected, and eventually lead to cryogenic sample return of nucleus ices for laboratory study.

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Section: C/2013 A1 At Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and Future Comet Missions

Snodgrass¹,

Feaga²,

Jones³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…The UVI can integrate for up to 11 s per exposure and may be useful for directly imaging bright meteors during the encounter, as well as constraining the brightness of any Mg II layer above the twilit limb afterward, although the wide 14 nm bandpass means that such observations will likely be strongly impacted by stray light originating from the illuminated dayside if not performed in eclipse. Finally, features in the ionospheric electron density profile have been characterized as meteoritic ion layers (Pätzold et al 2009;Withers et al 2013), and Akatsuki's Radio Science (Imamura et al 2017) radio occultation experiment may be sensitive to large perturbations of these layers comparable to that observed by similar methods during C/2013 A1ʼs encounter with Mars (Restano et al 2015;Sánchez-Cano et al 2020).…”

Section: Meteor Observabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following this encounter, Mars crossed the dust trail (MOID ∼ 30,000 km) at a point less than 3 hr behind the nucleus, intercepting a sizable fraction of the large, 1-10 mm grains released from the nucleus earlier at a heliocentric distance of r ∼ 22.5 au (Farnocchia et al 2014). Ultraviolet spectroscopy by the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars at the time subsequently revealed the appearance of a temporary metallic vapor layer in the atmosphere with a density consistent with ∼10 4 kg of deposited dust (Schneider et al 2015), while associated perturbations to the ionosphere were independently detected by multiple other spacecraft and instruments (Benna et al 2015;Restano et al 2015;Sánchez-Cano et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Preview of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and Its Encounter with Venus

Zhang

Vissapragada

et al. 2021

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Long-period comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) will approach Venus to within 0.029 au on 2021 December 18 and may subsequently graze the planet with its dust trail less than 2 days later. We observed C/2021 A1 with the Lowell Discovery Telescope on 2021 January 13 and March 3, as well as with the Palomar Hale Telescope on 2021 March 20, while the comet was inbound at heliocentric distances of r = 4.97, 4.46, and 4.28 au, respectively. Tail morphology suggests that the dust is optically dominated by ∼0.1-1 mm radius grains produced in the prior year. Neither narrowband imaging photometry nor spectrophotometry reveal any definitive gas emission, placing 3σ upper bounds on CN production of 10 23 molec −1 at both of the latter two epochs. Trajectory analysis indicates that large (1 mm) grains ejected at extremely large heliocentric distances (r  30 au) are most strongly favored to reach Venus. The flux of such meteors on Venus, and thus their potential direct or indirect observability, is highly uncertain, as the comet's dust production history is poorly constrained at these distances but will likely fall well below the meteor flux from comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring)ʼs closer encounter to Mars in 2014 and thus poses a negligible risk to any spacecraft in orbit around Venus. Dust produced in previous apparitions will not likely contribute substantially to the meteor flux, nor will dust from any future activity apart from an unlikely high-speed (0.5 km s −1 ) dust outburst prior to the comet reaching r ≈ 2 au in 2021 September.Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Comet tails (274); Long period comets (933); Meteor trails (1036); Venus (1763)

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“…Sánchez‐Cano et al. (2020) discussed how, before and during closest approach, the ionosphere was unusually variable, likely due to combined effects of the comet flyby and strong space weather (Espley et al., 2015). Sánchez‐Cano et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These instruments indicated an increase in the solar wind density by a factor of ∼2 as well as an increase in solar wind velocity, from ∼400 to 700 km/s (Witasse et al, 2017). Sánchez-Cano et al (2020) discussed how, before and during closest approach, the ionosphere was unusually variable, likely due to combined effects of the comet flyby and strong space weather (Espley et al, 2015). Sánchez-Cano et al (2018) noted an increase in solar wind speed at Mars lasted from October 17 to 22.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prolonged Lifetime of the Transient Ionized Layer in the Martian Atmosphere Caused by Comet Siding Spring

et al. 2020

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A1) flew close to Mars, passing within 40 Mars radii along a highly inclined orbital path. The event presented a rare opportunity to understand how cometary material is deposited and subsequently distributed in the Martian upper atmosphere, and to test models of atmospheric metal ion chemistry. During the close flyby, 82 (±25) tons of cometary material was deposited into the upper atmosphere of Mars with an approach velocity of 56 km s −1 (Crismani et al., 2018). Upon entry, the ablated material deposited an abundance of metallic species such as Mg, Na, and Fe into the upper atmosphere (Benna et al., 2015; Crismani et al., 2018; Schneider et al., 2015). The material formed a transient ionized layer with a peak altitude near 115 km that was detected by instruments on multiple spacecraft. This layer, composed primarily of Mg + ions, was produced by the ionization of ablated material through collisions, photoionization, and charge exchange with existing ionospheric ions (

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Mars' Ionospheric Interaction With Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring's Coma at Their Closest Approach as Seen by Mars Express

Cited by 5 publications

References 69 publications

Past and Future Comet Missions

Past and Future Comet Missions

Preview of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and Its Encounter with Venus

Prolonged Lifetime of the Transient Ionized Layer in the Martian Atmosphere Caused by Comet Siding Spring

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