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Science 24 February 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5764, pp. 1135 - 1138
DOI: 10.1126/science.1122099
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Reports

Effects of Solar Flares on the Ionosphere of Mars

Michael Mendillo,1 Paul Withers,1* David Hinson,2 Henry Rishbeth,1,3 Bodo Reinisch4

All planetary atmospheres respond to the enhanced x-rays and ultraviolet (UV) light emitted from the Sun during a flare. Yet only on Earth are observations so continuous that the consequences of these essentially unpredictable events can be measured reliably. Here, we report observations of solar flares, causing up to 200% enhancements to the ionosphere of Mars, as recorded by the Mars Global Surveyor in April 2001. Modeling the altitude dependence of these effects requires that relative enhancements in the soft x-ray fluxes far exceed those in the UV.

1 Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
3 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
4 Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: withers{at}bu.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Solar rotation effects on the thermospheres of Mars and Earth..
J. M. Forbes, S. Bruinsma, and F. G. Lemoine (2006)
Science 312, 1366-1368
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)