Plasma instabilities near Mars

H. Gunell (1) , U. V. Amerstorfer (2) , E. Carlsson (1) , C. Grima (1, 3) , The Aspera-3 Team

1 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala / Kiruna]
2 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
3 UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier

It has been suggested in the literature that the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability can be responsible for significant ion loss at Mars through the detachment of ionospheric plasma clouds Clouds of detached ionospheric plasma were observed at Venus by the Pioneer Venus orbiter The conditions at Mars differ somewhat from those at Venus The ratio between the ion gyro radius and the radius of the planet is larger at Mars than at Venus since Mars is a smaller planet and the solar wind magnetic field is weaker at Mars than at Venus It is therefore interesting to study instabilities at Mars and to compare the results from Mars with those from Venus We search the ion and electron data from the ASPERA-3 instrument on the Mars Express spacecraft for signatures of instabilities at Mars We present data indicative of instabilities in the magnetosheath and the induced magnetosphere boundary downstream of the planet

H. Gunell, U. V. Amerstorfer, E. Carlsson, C. Grima, The Aspera-3 Team. Plasma instabilities near Mars. 36th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 2006, Beijing, China. ⟨insu-00358871⟩