Ionosphere on Mars?

[k4kyv]

All the scientific probes on Mars these days got me thinking. #I have yet to hear anything about whether an ionosphere has been detected in the planet's upper atmosphere. #It would be interesting to know if skywave propagation would be possible, and how it would compare to what we know on earth. #Wonder if it even entered anyone's mind at NASA to install a low power frequency-agile transmitter in one of the landers and receiver in the other, that would #scan the spectrum from VLF to VHF to see what kind of propagation, if any, exists that would allow radio communication from one side of the planet to the other.

[W4CGP]

Marsbounce anyone?

[w5alt]

Take a look at http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ast99/ast99435.htm

Isn't Google wonderful?

73,

[KG4WRA]

You raise an excellent question, and I've often wondered why NASA doesn't try that with their rovers as well. But I think the reason NASA doesn't try that is because they want to focus only on what they feel is vital to learn for future "human exploration" on Mars. Communication using the Ionosphere is not a necessity, as the satellites orbiting Mars are serving their purpose by transmitting information to and from each rover, and back to earth.

[w5alt]

Actually NASA has investigated the Martian ionosphere in quite some detail and it is much different than Earth's since Mars has no dipole magnetic field in its core, but only a crustal magnetic field that is arranged in bands. They've already modeled it, measured it and determined that the MUF is much lower than on Earth due to the thinner atmosphere, the nonuniform magnetic field, the lesser amount of solar wind, etc.

73,

[ai4ep]

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif nah...never mind !! http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[ke4pjw]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (w5alt @ Mar. 06 2004,07:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Actually NASA has investigated the Martian ionosphere in quite some detail and it is much different than Earth's since Mars has no dipole magnetic field in its core, but only a crustal magnetic field that is arranged in bands. They've already modeled it, measured it and determined that the MUF is much lower than on Earth due to the thinner atmosphere, the nonuniform magnetic field, the lesser amount of solar wind, etc.

73,[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
That was going to be my question, does Mars even have a magntoshere. Thanks for posting that Walt!

[kn6z]

Mars has no magnetic field today. Mars does have evidence of ancient plate tectonics, and the ancient plate boundaries do preserve the signature of an ancient magnetic field. Four billion years ago Mars had already cooled and solidified so deep that the iron core was no longer molten. A swirling, molten iron core is required for a terrestrial type planet, such as Mars, to have a magnetic field via dynamo effect.

[w5alt]

On the contrary, Mars does indeed have a magnetic field and it has been mapped. It is composed entirely of crustal magnetism instead of a molten iron dipole like earth's. Earth has lots of crustal magnetism, too, just it is somewhat masked by the magnetic dynamo in the molten core.

One of the major oddities is that Mars magnetic field appears as a series of bands running east-west (as I recall). That seems to cause mappable variations in the height of its ionosphere.

See, for example, http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/12/15_mars.html

73,

[kn6z]

True enough. Even the moon has crustal magnetism.

[N7VQM]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (W4CGP @ Mar. 06 2004,21:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Marsbounce anyone?[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
What's the calculated path loss on THAT trip??

[KC8QMU]

Even the moon has crustal magnetism.

Kind of reminds me of a few nets that I know of. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

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