Martian ionospheric response during the may 2024 solar superstorm.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41786711.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-69468-z and PMC identifier 12963534.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Solar energetic events can have considerable effects on planetary ionospheres. However, the erratic nature of these solar energetic events make observations difficult. Here we show a mutual radio occultation observation, which serendipitously occurred just 10 minutes after a large solar flare impacted Mars. This resulted in the largest lower ionospheric layer ever recorded, where it was 278% its typical size. We used in-situ soft x-ray irradiance measurements to show a threefold increase in flux. This infers a different relation of soft X-ray to this layer's density than previously thought, with variations depending on the amount of spectrum 'hardening' leading to the increase of ionisation from secondaries.