第九届青年地学论坛

The Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer (MINPA), one of the seven scientific payloads onboard the Tianwen-1 orbiter, was designed to measure ions and energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) at Mars. From November 2021, MINPA started to collect scientific data around Mars. Here, we present MINPA's first results of the solar-wind ENAs, which are produced through the charge exchange process between the solar wind hydrogen ions and the Martian neutral exosphere. We perform a comprehensive comparison between the inflight ENA data and ground calibration results to understand the energy and angular distributions of the solar-wind ENA signals. The possible contamination of these observations by ions and solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) is evaluated by comparing the ENA measurements with the ion data. We will present several cases and statistic results of the solar wind ENA observations, and their intensities are estimated to be 10^6~10^7 cm^-2 sr^-1 s^-1, which is in good agreement with previous in situ measurements and predictions using models.

ENA,Tianwen-1,MINPA