The magnetosphere of Jupiter is a vast region (50 million times the volume of the planet, 70,000 times the volume of the Sun) that is dominated by the magnetic field of Jupiter. Towards the Sun, upstream in the solar wind, the magnetosphere extends 60-100 jovian radii, compressing and expanding in response to changes in the solar wind pressure. Downstream in the solar wind, the magnetosphere extends past the orbit of Saturn. The vast volume of the magnetosphere encompasses the ring system and many of Jupiter’s 95 moons, including the four Galilean moons. The innermost Galilean moon, Io, ejects about one ton per second of gases, derived from its sulfur dioxide (SO2) atmosphere, that are dissociated and ionized to produce a toroidal region of plasma comprising electrons plus S and O ions of multiple charge states. Plasma from the Io plasma torus spreads out into the magnetosphere, getting heated (by poorly understood processes) to form a plasma sheet. Some of the magnetospheric particles are accelerated and precipitate into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where they excite intense auroral emissions, spanning the spectrum from X-rays to radio. The plasma sheet extends well beyond the orbits of the Galilean moons. The plasma interaction with Europa induces electrical currents in the ocean below the moon’s ice crust. Ganymede is the only moon known to have its own internal magnetic dynamo, producing a magnetosphere within a magnetosphere. Electrical currents generated in the plasma interactions with Io, Europa, and Ganymede travel along the magnetic field to Jupiter, where localized auroral emissions are excited at the satellites’ magnetic footprints. Large-scale electrical currents flow along the magnetic field between Jupiter and the plasma sheet, coupling the plasma sheet to Jupiter’s ionosphere that rotates with the planet’s ~10-hour spin period. Thus, Jupiter’s angular momentum drives the dynamics of the magnetosphere out to ~50 jovian radii. Farther out, the solar wind begins to influence the magnetospheric dynamics, coupled by processes at the magnetospheric boundary. Ultimately, the Iogenic material is ejected as plasma blobs down the magnetotail, eventually mixing with the solar wind, similar to the plasma tail of a comet.
12
Article
Magnetosphere of Jupiter
Fran Bagenal
Article
Martian Paleoclimate
Robert M. Haberle
The climate of Mars has evolved over time. Early in its history, between 3.7 and 4.1 billion years ago, the climate was warmer and wetter and the atmosphere thicker than it is today. Erosion rates were higher than today, and liquid water flowed on the planet’s surface, carving valley networks, filling lakes, creating deltas, and weathering rocks. This implies runoff and suggests rainfall and/or snowmelt. Oceans may have existed. Over time, the atmosphere thinned, erosion rates declined, water activity ceased, and cooler and drier conditions prevailed. Ice became the dominate form of surface water. Yet the climate continued to evolve, driven now by large variations in Mars’ orbit parameters. Beating in rhythm with these variations, surface ice has been repeatedly mobilized and moved around the planet, glaciers have advanced and retreated, dust storms and polar caps have come and gone, and the atmosphere has collapsed and re-inflated many times. The layered terrains that now characterize both polar regions are telltale signatures of this cyclical behavior and owe their existence to modulations of the seasonal cycles of dust, water, and CO2. Contrary to the early images from the Mariner flybys of the 1960s, Mars is and has been a dynamically active planet whose surface has been partly shaped through its interaction with a changing atmosphere and climate system.
Article
The Lower Ionosphere of Mars: Modeling and Effect of Dust
Varun Sheel
The study of planetary ionospheres helps us to understand the composition, losses, and electrical properties of the atmosphere. The structure of the ionosphere depends on the neutral gas composition as well. Models based on fundamental equations have been able to simulate the neutral and ion structure of the Martian atmosphere. These models couple chemical, physical, radiative, and dynamical processes at various levels of complexities.
The lower ionosphere (below 80 km) and its composition have not been observed and studied as comprehensively as the upper ionosphere. Most of our current understanding of the plasma environment in the lower atmosphere is based on theoretical models. Models indicate that Mars contains a D region, similar to that in the Earth’s ionosphere, produced primarily due to high-energy galactic cosmic rays that can penetrate to the lower altitudes. The D layer has been simulated to lie in the altitude range of ~25 to 35 km on the dayside ionosphere of Mars. A one-dimensional model, used to calculate the densities of 35 positive and negative ions, predicts hydrated ions to be dominant in the troposphere of Mars. Due to the variability of water vapor, these cluster ions show seasonal variability and can be measured by future experiments on Mars landers.
Dust is an important component of the climate of Mars, wherein dust storms are known to affect the temperatures and winds of the lower atmosphere. The inclusion of ion–dust interactions in the model for the Martian ionosphere has yielded important effects of dust storms on the ionosphere. It has been found that during dust storms, the ion densities can significantly diminish, reducing the total ion conductivity in the troposphere by an order of magnitude. Also, large electric fields could be generated due to the charging of dust in the ionosphere, leading to electric discharges and, possibly, lightning.
Article
Magnetosphere–Ionosphere Coupling
N. Achilleos, L. C. Ray, and J. N. Yates
The process of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling involves the transport of vast quantities of energy and momentum between a magnetized planet and its space environment, or magnetosphere. This transport involves extended, global sheets of electrical current, which flows along magnetic field lines. Some of the charged particles, which carry this current rain down onto the planet’s upper atmosphere and excite aurorae–beautiful displays of light close to the magnetic poles, which are an important signature of the physics of the coupling process. The Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn all have magnetospheres, but the detailed physical origin of their auroral emissions differs from planet to planet. The Earth’s aurora is principally driven by the interaction of its magnetosphere with the upstream solar wind—a flow of plasma continually emanating from the Sun. This interaction imposes a particular pattern of flow on the plasma within the magnetosphere, which in turn determines the morphology and intensity of the currents and aurorae. Jupiter, on the other hand, is a giant rapid rotator, whose main auroral oval is thought to arise from the transport of angular momentum between the upper atmosphere and the rotating, disc-like plasma in the magnetosphere. Saturn exhibits auroral behavior consistent with a solar wind–related mechanism, but there is also regular variability in Saturn’s auroral emissions, which is consistent with rotating current systems that transport energy between the magnetospheric plasma and localized vortices of flow in the upper atmosphere/ionosphere.
Article
Planetary Aurorae
Steve Miller
Planetary aurorae are some of the most iconic and brilliant (in all senses of that word) indicators not only of the interconnections on Planet Earth, but that these interconnections pertain throughout the entire Solar System as well. They are testimony to the centrality of the Sun, not just in providing the essential sunlight that drives weather systems and makes habitability possible, but also in generating a high velocity wind of electrically charged particles—known as the Solar Wind—that buffets each of the planets in turn as it streams outward through interplanetary space. Aurorae are created when electrically charged particles—predominantly negatively charged electrons or positive ions such as protons, the nuclei of hydrogen—crash into the atoms and molecules of a planetary or lunar atmosphere. Such particles can excite the electrons in atoms and molecules from their ground state to higher levels. The atoms and molecules that have been excited by these high-energy collisions can then relax; the emitted radiation is at certain well-defined wavelengths, giving characteristic colors to the aurorae. Just how many particles, how much atmosphere, and what strength of magnetic field are required to create aurorae is an open question. But giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn have aurorae, as does Earth. Some moons also show these emissions. Overall, the aurorae of the Solar System are very varied, variable, and exciting.
Article
Solar Wind and Terrestrial Planets
Edik Dubinin, Janet G. Luhmann, and James A. Slavin
Knowledge about the solar wind interactions of Venus, Mars, and Mercury is rapidly expanding. While the Earth is also a terrestrial planet, it has been studied much more extensively and in far greater detail than its companions. As a result we direct the reader to specific references on that subject for obtaining an accurate comparative picture. Due to the strength of the Earth’s intrinsic dipole field, a relatively large volume is carved out in interplanetary space around the planet and its atmosphere. This “magnetosphere” is regarded as a shield from external effects, but in actuality much energy and momentum are channeled into it, especially at high latitudes, where the frequent interconnection between the Earth’s magnetic field and the interplanetary field allows some access by solar wind particles and electric fields to the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Moreover, reconnection between oppositely directed magnetic fields occurs in Earth’s extended magnetotail—producing a host of other phenomena including injection of a ring current of energized internal plasma from the magnetotail into the inner magnetosphere—creating magnetic storms and enhancements in auroral activity and related ionospheric outflows. There are also permanent, though variable, trapped radiation belts that strengthen and decay with the rest of magnetospheric activity—depositing additional energy into the upper atmosphere over a wider latitude range. Virtually every aspect of the Earth’s solar wind interaction, highly tied to its strong intrinsic dipole field, has its own dedicated textbook chapters and review papers.
Although Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars belong to the same class of rocky terrestrial planets, their interaction with solar wind is very different. Earth and Mercury have the intrinsic, mainly dipole magnetic field, which protects them from direct exposure by solar wind. In contrast, Venus and Mars have no such shield and solar wind directly impacts their atmospheres/ionospheres. In the first case, intrinsic magnetospheric cavities with a long tail are found. In the second case, magnetospheres are also formed but are generated by the electric currents induced in the conductive ionospheres. The interaction of solar wind with terrestrial planets also varies due to changes caused by different distances to the Sun and large variations in solar irradiance and solar wind parameters. Other important planetary differences like local strong crustal magnetization on Mars and almost total absence of the ionosphere on Mercury create new essential features to the interaction pattern. Solar wind might be also a feasible driver for planetary atmospheric losses of volatiles, which could historically affect the habitability of the terrestrial planets.
Article
Interplanetary Dust Particles
George J. Flynn
Scattered sunlight from interplanetary dust particles, mostly produced by comets and asteroids, orbiting the Sun are visible at dusk or dawn as the Zodiacal Cloud. Impacts onto the space-exposed surfaces of Earth-orbiting satellites indicate that, in the current era, thousands of tons of interplanetary dust enters the Earth’s atmosphere every year. Some particles vaporize forming meteors while others survive atmospheric deceleration and settle to the surface of the Earth. NASA has collected interplanetary dust particles from the Earth’s stratosphere using high-altitude aircraft since the mid-1970s. Detailed characterization of these particles shows that some are unique samples of Solar System and presolar material, never affected by the aqueous and thermal processing that overprints the record of formation from the Solar Protoplanetary Disk in the meteorites. These particles preserve the record of grain and dust formation from the disk. This record suggests that many of the crystalline minerals, dominated by crystalline silicates (olivine and pyroxene) and Fe-sulfides, condensed from gas in the inner Solar System and were then transported outward to the colder outer Solar System where carbon-bearing ices condensed on the surfaces of the grains. Irradiation by solar ultraviolet light and cosmic rays produced thin organic coatings on the grain surfaces that likely aided in grain sticking, forming the first dust particles of the Solar System. This continuous, planet-wide rain of interplanetary dust particles can be monitored by the accumulation of 3He, implanted into the interplanetary dust particles by the Solar Wind while they were in space, in oceanic sediments. The interplanetary dust, which is rich in organic carbon, may have contributed important pre-biotic organic matter important to the development of life to the surface of the early Earth.
Article
Martian Ionospheric Observation and Modelling
Francisco González-Galindo
The Martian ionosphere is a plasma embedded within the neutral upper atmosphere of the planet. Its main source is the ionization of the CO2-dominated Martian mesosphere and thermosphere by energetic EUV solar radiation. The ionosphere of Mars is subject to an important variability induced by changes in its forcing mechanisms (e.g., the UV solar flux) and by variations in the neutral atmosphere (e.g., the presence of global dust storms, atmospheric waves and tides, changes in atmospheric composition, etc.). Its vertical structure is dominated by a maximum in electron concentration at altitude about 120–140 km, coincident with the peak of the ionization rate. Below, there is a secondary peak produced by solar X-rays and photoelectron-impact ionization. A sporadic third layer, possibly of meteoric origin, has been also detected below.
The most abundant ion in the Martian ionosphere is O2
+, although O+ can become more abundant in the upper ionospheric layers. While below about 180–200 km the Martian ionosphere is dominated by photochemical processes, above those altitudes the dynamics of the plasma becomes more important. The ionosphere is also an important source of escaping particles via processes such as dissociative recombination of ions or ion pickup. So, characterization of the ionosphere provides or can provide information about such disparate systems and processes as solar radiation reaching the planet, the neutral atmosphere, meteoric influx, atmospheric escape to space, or the interaction of the planet with the solar wind.
It is thus not surprising that the interest about this region dates from the beginning of the space era. From the first measurements provided by the Mariner 4 mission in the 1960s to observations by the Mars Express and MAVEN orbiters in the 2010s, our knowledge of this atmospheric region is the consequence of the accumulation of more than 50 years of discontinuous measurements by different space missions. Numerical simulations by computational models able to simulate the processes that shape the ionosphere have also been commonly employed to obtain information about this region, to provide an interpretation of the observations and to fill their gaps. As a result, at the end of the 2010s the Martian ionosphere was the best known one after that of the Earth. However, there are still areas for which our knowledge is far from being complete. Examples are the details and balance of the mechanisms populating the nightside ionosphere, the origin and variability of the lower ionospheric peak, and the precise mechanisms shaping the topside ionosphere.
Article
Planetary Magnetic Fields and Dynamos
Ulrich R. Christensen
Since 1973 space missions carrying vector magnetometers have shown that most, but not all, solar system planets have a global magnetic field of internal origin. They have also revealed a surprising diversity in terms of field strength and morphology. While Jupiter’s field, like that of Earth, is dominated by a dipole moderately tilted relative to the planet’s spin axis, the fields of Uranus and Neptune are multipole-dominated, whereas those of Saturn and Mercury are highly symmetric relative to the rotation axis. Planetary magnetism originates from a dynamo process, which requires a fluid and electrically conducting region in the interior with sufficiently rapid and complex flow. The magnetic fields are of interest for three reasons: (i) they provide ground truth for dynamo theory, (ii) the magnetic field controls how the planet interacts with its space environment, for example, the solar wind, and (iii) the existence or nonexistence and the properties of the field enable us to draw inferences on the constitution, dynamics, and thermal evolution of the planet’s interior. Numerical simulations of the geodynamo, in which convective flow in a rapidly rotating spherical shell representing the outer liquid iron core of the Earth leads to induction of electric currents, have successfully reproduced many observed properties of the geomagnetic field. They have also provided guidelines on the factors controlling magnetic field strength and morphology. For numerical reasons the simulations must employ viscosities far greater than those inside planets and it is debatable whether they capture the correct physics of planetary dynamo processes. Nonetheless, such models have been adapted to test concepts for explaining magnetic field properties of other planets. For example, they show that a stable stratified conducting layer above the dynamo region is a plausible cause for the strongly axisymmetric magnetic fields of Mercury or Saturn.
Article
The Magnetosphere of Saturn
Sarah Badman
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Please check back later for the full article.
Saturn’s magnetosphere is the region of space surrounding Saturn that is controlled by the planetary magnetic field. Saturn’s magnetic field is aligned to within 1 degree of the rotation axis and rotates with a period of ~10.7 h. The magnetosphere is compressed on the dayside by the impinging solar wind, and stretched into a long magnetotail on the nightside. Its surface, the magnetopause, is located where the internal and external plasma and magnetic pressures balance. As a result of the pressure distributions, the magnetopause has a bimodal distribution of standoff distance at the sub-solar point and is flattened over the poles relative to the equator.
Radiation belts composed of trapped energetic electrons and protons are present in the inner magnetosphere. Their intensity is limited by the moons and rings that can absorb the energetic particles. The icy moons and rings, particularly the cryovolcanic moon Enceladus, are the main sources of mass in the form of water. When the water molecules are ionized they are confined to the equatorial plane by the rapidly rotating magnetic field. This mass-loading acts to distend the magnetic field lines from a dipolar configuration into a radially stretched magnetodisk, with an associated eastward-directed current. In situ measurements of plasma velocity indicate it generally lags behind the planetary rotation, introducing an azimuthal component of the magnetic field. Despite the alignment of the magnetic and rotation axes, so-called planetary period oscillations are ubiquitous in field and plasma measurements in the magnetosphere.
Radial transport of plasma involves the centrifugal interchange instability in the inner magnetosphere and magnetic reconnection in the middle and outer magnetosphere. This allows mass from the moons and rings to be lost from the system. The outermost regions of the magnetosphere are also influenced by the surrounding solar wind through magnetic reconnection and viscous interactions. Acceleration via reconnection or other processes, or scattering of plasma into the atmosphere leads to auroral emissions detected at radio, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet wavelengths.
12
