Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
Indian scientists have revealed that Mars's crustal magnetic field significantly impacts the planet during the day but is nearly absent at night, offering new insights into the Martian magnetic environment.
This discovery is crucial for understanding how Mars's magnetic field influences its atmosphere and could have implications for future human and robotic missions to the planet.
Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global magnetic field. Instead, it has scattered crustal magnetic fields, primarily located in the southern hemisphere, specifically poleward of 30°S latitude and between 120°E to 240°E longitude.
The study found that these localized magnetic fields have a strong effect on the Martian ionosphere during the day, especially in the southern hemisphere. At night, however, this influence diminishes, equalizing conditions between the hemispheres.
The researchers observed that the daytime influence of Mars's crustal magnetic fields remains stable, unaffected by seasonal changes or the planet's distance from the Sun, indicating a consistent magnetic environment during daylight hours.
The team from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) conducted their study using nearly eight years of data from NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) satellite, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014.
The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, enhance our understanding of Mars's magnetic environment, providing valuable information for planning future exploration missions to the Red Planet.