Auroras in Solar System

For last twenty years our group has been modelling the processes of solar wind plasma penetrating the outer layers of planetary atmospheres in the Solar system. The models of electron and proton auroras were used to study the northern lights and explanation of observations in the upper layers of the Earth’s (NASA’s IMAGE project), Venusian (ESA’s Venus Express mission) and Martian (ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s MAVEN missions) atmospheres. The same models were implemented to interpret the observations of auroras at giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, made by Hubble space telescope. Now, our mathematical models of plasma particles precipitation are used to study various types of newly discovered auroras on Mars – discrete, diffuse, and proton, using available data of Mars Express and MAVEN spacecraft. We also study the effect of particle precipitation on the upper and middle layers of Martian atmosphere in ExoMars space project (ESA/Roscosmos).

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