We present a statistical study of propagation characteristics of Hot Flow Anomalies (HFAs) at Mars based on 19 manually selected events registered by the NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. Based on the number of registered events during the observed time interval we conclude that HFAs are common foreshock transients at Mars with an occurrence rate of 0.6 +/- 0.3 events per day. The estimated size of the investigated HFAs starts from 0.2 Mars radii; we are cautious about giving estimates of the upper limit of this value as commonly used techniques produce values up to more than ten of Martian radii which by far exceeds any reasonable dimension of a foreshock transient at Mars. The propagation speed of the observed formations was calculated as the speed of intersection line between the interplanetary current sheet and the surface of the bow shock. Being detected at solar-zenith angles of 53 degrees-76 degrees, almost all of the HFAs presented in this study propagate in the anti-sunward direction. With the use of HFA's propagation speed we made an upper estimate of the lifetime of each separate anomaly at the moment of its registration assuming that it can't form before CS's crossing of the subsolar point at the bow shock. No visible correlation between HFA's lifetime and size was found, which is consistent with the previous study proving that these structures can be either expanding, contracting or stable (Xiao et al., 2015).

Current sheets (CSs) play a crucial role in the storage and conversion of magnetic energy in planetary magnetotails. Spacecraft observations in the terrestrial magnetotail reported that the CS thinning and intensification can result in formation of multiscale current structure in which a very thin and intense current layer at the center of the CS is embedded into a thicker sheet. To describe such CSs fully kinetic description taking into account all peculiarities of non-adiabatic particle dynamics is required. Kinetic description brings kinetic scales to the CS models. Ion scales are controlled by thermal ion Larmor radius, while scales of sub-ion embedded CS are controlled by the topology of magnetic field lines until the electron motion is magnetized by a small component of the magnetic field existing in a very center of the CS. MMS observations in the Earth magnetotail as well as MAVEN observations in the Martian magnetotail with high time resolution revealed the formation of similar multiscale structure of the cross-tail CS in spite of very different local plasma characteristics. We revealed that the typical half‐thickness of the embedded Super Thin Current Sheet (STCSs) observed at the center of the CS in the magnetotails of both planets is much less than the gyroradius of thermal protons. The formation of STCS does not depend on ion composition, density and temperature, but it is controlled by the small value of the normal component of the magnetic field at the neutral plane. Our analysis showed that there is a good agreement between the spatial scaling of multiscale CSs observed in both magnetotails and the scaling predicted by the quasi-adiabatic model of thin anisotropic CS taking into account the coupling between ion and electron currents. Thus, in spite of the significant differences in the CS formation, ion composition, and plasma characteristics in the Earth’s and Martian magnetotails, similar kinetic features are observed in the CS structures in the magnetotails of both planets. This phenomenon can be explained by the universal principles of nature. The CS once has been formed, then it should be self-consistently supported by the internal coupling of the total current carried by particles in the CS and its magnetic configuration, and as soon as the system achieved the quasi-equilibrium state, it “forgets” the mechanisms of its formation, and its following existence is ruled by the general principles of plasma kinetic described by Vlasov–Maxwell equations. This work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant № 20-42-04418

We analyzed 44 passes of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission (MAVEN) spacecraft through the magnetosphere, arranged by the angle between electric field vector and the projection of spacecraft position radius vector in the plane perpendicular to the Mars‐Sun line ( θ E ). All passes were divided into three angular sectors near 0°, 90°, and 180° θ E angles in order to estimate the role of the interplanetary magnetic field direction in plasma and magnetic properties of dayside Martian magnetosphere. The time interval chosen was from 17 January to 4 February 2016 when MAVEN was crossing the dayside magnetosphere at solar zenith angle ~70°. Magnetosphere as the region with prevailing energetic planetary ions is always found between the magnetosheath and the ionosphere. The analysis of dayside interaction region showed that for each angular sector with different orientation of the solar wind electric field vector E = −1/ c V × B one can find specific profiles of the magnetosheath, the magnetic barrier (Michel, 1971, https://doi.org/10.1029/RG009i002p00427 ; Zhang et al., 1991, https://doi.org/10.1029/91JA00088 ), and the magnetosphere. Magnetic barrier forms in front of the magnetosphere, and relative magnetic field magnitudes in these two domains vary. The average height of the boundary with ionosphere is ~530 km, and the average height of the magnetopause is ~730 km. We discuss the implications of the observed magnetosphere structure to the planetary ions loss mechanism.

During the last 15 years, the Current Sheets (CSs) have been intensively studied in the tail of the terrestrial magnetosphere, where protons are the dominated ion component. On the contrary, in the Martian magnetotail heavy ions (O+ and+ 0) usually dominate while the abundance of protons can be negligible. Hence it is interesting to study the spatial structure and plasma characteristics of such “oxygen” CSs. MAVEN spacecraft (s/c) currently operating on the Martian orbit with a unique set of scientific instruments allows observation of the magnetic field and three-dimensional distribution functions of various ion components and electrons with a high time resolution. In this paper, we analyse nine intervals of the CSs observed by MAVEN in the near-Mars tail at the distances from the planet ~1.5–1R M , where R M is the radius of Mars. We analyse the spatial structure of the CSs and estimate their thickness for different magnetic configurations and relative abundance of the heavy and light ions in the sheets. It is shown that, similarly to the CSs in the Earth’s magnetotail, the thickness and complexity of the spatial structure of the Maritan CSs (i.e. the presence of embedded and / or peripheral current structures) depend on the magnetic configuration of the sheets, which, in turn, affects the fraction of the quasi-adiabatic particles in the CSs.

Simultaneous operation of two Mars satellites, equipped with instruments for the study of the plasma environment close to Mars, the European satellite Mars Express and American satellite MAVEN, allows one to investigate the influence of the interplanetary environment on the Martian magnetosphere and atmospheric losses, induced by the solar wind, for the first time, with a sufficient degree of confidence. In this paper, the data from measurements on the Mars Express satellite (MEX) of heavy ion losses are analyzed in comparison with the solar wind and magnetic field measurements on the MAVEN satellite. The main issue is the spatial structure of the escaping ion flux and the influence of the nonstationarity of the solar wind flux on the escape rate.

MAVEN spacecraft provides new opportunities for analysis of Martian environment and physical process in near-Mars space. One of interesting regions of near-Mars space is the Martian magnetosphere that is formed from mass-loaded magnetic flux tubes. There is quite detailed knowledge of the night-side magnetosphere of Mars, however the number of publications on the dayside magnetosphere are quite limited. We analyze the plasma and magnetic structure and properties of Martian magnetosphere at strong mass-loading conditions as observed on MAVEN at Mars at the solar-zenith angle of ∼80° on January 4, 2015. This strong mass loading of upstream flow was apparently associated with plume ions ejected from upper part of Martian magnetosphere by the solar wind motional electric field. The magnetosphere is defined by two current layers separating it from the magnetosheath at higher altitudes and from ionosphere plasma at lower altitudes. It is characterized by dominance of planetary ions which number density increases by two orders of magnitude from upper boundary to lower one. There is approximate equipartition between magnetic, ion thermal and kinetic energies through magnetosphere. The data suggest that the boundary of the magnetosphere is in pressure equilibrium with magnetosheath flow. The total energy of ion flow above (in the magnetosheath) and below (in the region of accelerated ionospheric ions) magnetosphere exceeds the magnetic energy. The upper boundary of magnetosphere was located at the place where the ratio of heavy ions and protons number densities reached ∼0.4. Within magnetosphere this ratio continued to rise and increased by about 2 orders of magnitude at the inner boundary of magnetosphere. The heavy ion number density profile within magnetosphere suggests that it was formed by the solar wind magnetic flux tubes that reached Mars in a narrow region near the subsolar point, and then drifted around Mars to the terminator region, mass-loaded by UV-ionized upper atmosphere neutrals during this drift.

The paper describes cases of observations of narrow energy spectrum electron flows up to 500 eV on the INTERBALL Tail Probe . About 30 events were registered in 1996 on the night side of the Earth predominantly in 03 h –06 h local time sector. Quasimonochromatic electrons (QME) were registered by all 8 spectrometer channels oriented along the spacecraft meridian with angles of the field of view centers relative to sunward direction from 11° to 169°. Quasimonochromatic electrons were observed simultaneously with large fluxes of high temperature magnetospheric electrons. The dependences of QME energy on both fluxes and energy of high-energy magnetospheric electrons were observed in every event. The ratio of full width at half height (FWHH) to mean energy of QME was ~20%. This electron component with quasimonochromatic energy probably was originated on the spacecraft surface. The registered energy of QME was apparently due to difference of potentials between spacecraft surface from which electron beam originated and the location of electron spectrometer.