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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes., The Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD)/UV-visible (UVIS) spectrometer on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter provided observations of ozone (O3) and water vapor in the global dust storm of 2018. Here we show in detail, using advanced data filtering and chemical modeling, how Martian O3 in the middle atmosphere was destroyed during the dust storm. In data taken exactly 1 year later when no dust storm occurred, the normal situation had been reestablished. The model simulates how water vapor is transported to high altitudes and latitudes in the storm, where it photolyzes to form odd hydrogen species that catalyze O3. O3 destruction is simulated at all latitudes and up to 100 km, except near the surface where it increases. The simulations also predict a strong increase in the photochemical production of atomic hydrogen in the middle atmosphere, consistent with the enhanced hydrogen escape observed in the upper atmosphere during global dust storms. © 2022 The Authors., This work was made possible thanks to the reconstructed gridded maps of column dust optical depth from Mars Climate Sounder observations provided by L. Montabone. The dust maps were prepared using MCS v5.3 provided by A. Kleinböhl and D. Kass. Dust climatologies can be found at the following link: http://www-mars.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars/dust_climatology/. ExoMars is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), assisted by Co-PI teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS), and the United Kingdom (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with the financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493), by the UK Space Agency (grants ST/V002295/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/V005332/1 and ST/S00145X/1), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIU), and by European funds (grants PGC2018-101836-B-I00 and ESP2017-87143-R, MINECO/FEDER), as well as by the Italian Space Agency (Grant 2018-2-HH.0). This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (Grant Nos. 30442502, ET_HOME). This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101004052, RoadMap project). The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). US investigators were supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, by NASA's Mars Program Office (under WBS 604796, “Participation in the TGO/NOMAD Investigation of Trace Gases on Mars.”), and by NASA (award number 80GSFC21M0002). Canadian investigators were supported by the Canadian Space Agency.

The Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer Ultraviolet (UVIS UV) and Visible Spectrometer channel of the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery spectrometer aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has made limb observations of the Martian dayglow during more than a Martian year. Two pointing modes have been applied: (a) In the inertial mode, the spectrometer scans the atmosphere twice down to near the surface and provides altitude profiles of the dayglow; (b) in the tracking mode, the atmosphere is scanned at varying latitudes at a nearly constant altitude through the entire observation. We present a statistical study of the vertical and seasonal distribution of the recently discovered oxygen green and red lines at 557.7 nm and 630 nm. It indicates that the brightness of the green line emission responds to changes in the Lyman-α flux. The peak altitude of the green line emission increases seasonally when the Sun-Mars distance decreases. The lower peak of the green line statistically drops by 15–20 km between perihelion and aphelion at mid-to high altitude. The main lower peak intensity shows an asymmetry between the two hemispheres. It is significantly brighter and more pronounced in the southern hemisphere than in the north. This is a consequence of the stronger Lyman-α solar flux near perihelion. The second component of the oxygen red line at 636.4 nm is also detected for the first time in the Martian atmosphere. A photochemical model is used to simulate the variations of the green dayglow observed along limb tracking orbits. © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved., The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), assisted by Co-PI teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS), and the United Kingdom (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with the financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493, 4000129686), by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIU) and by European funds under grants PGC2018-101836-B-I00 and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER), as well as by UK Space Agency. This work is supported by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/V002295/1, ST/V005332/1 and ST/S00145X/1 and Italian Space Agency through Grant 2018-2-HH.0. This research was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS under Grant No. 30442502 (ET_HOME). B. H. is supported by FNRS. The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). L. Gkouvelis is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. B. H. is supported by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS).

The Far Ultra Violet (FUV) ultraviolet imager onboard the NASA-ICON mission is dedicated to the observation and study of the ionosphere dynamics at mid and low latitudes. We compare O+ density profiles provided by the ICON FUV instrument during nighttime with electron density profiles measured by the COSMIC-2 constellation (C2) and ground-based ionosondes. Co-located simultaneous observations are compared, covering the period from November 2019 to July 2020, which produces several thousands of coincidences. Manual scaling of ionogram sequences ensures the reliability of the ionosonde profiles, while C2 data are carefully selected using an automatic quality control algorithm. Photoelectron contribution coming from the magnetically conjugated hemisphere is clearly visible in FUV data around solstices and has been filtered out from our analysis. We find that the FUV observations are consistent with the C2 and ionosonde measurements, with an average positive bias lower than 1 × 1011e/m3. When restricting the analysis to cases having an NmF2 value larger than 5 × 1011e/m3, FUV provides the peak electron density with a mean difference with C2 of 10%. The peak altitude, also determined from FUV observations, is found to be 15 km above that obtained from C2, and 38 km above the ionosonde value on average.

Following the recent detection of the oxygen green line airglow on Mars, we have improved the statistical analysis of the data recorded by the NOMAD/UVIS instrument on board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission by summing up hundreds of spectra to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. This led to the observation of the OI 630 nm emission, the first detection in a planetary atmosphere outside the Earth. The average limb profile shows a broad peak intensity of 4.8 kR near 150 km. Comparison with a photochemical model indicates that it is well predicted by current photochemistry, considering the sources of uncertainty. The red/green line intensity ratio decreases dramatically with altitude as a consequence of the efficient quenching of O(1D) by CO2. Simultaneous observations of the green and red dayglow will provide information on variations in the thermosphere in response to seasonal changes and the effects of solar events. © 2021. American Geophysical Union., B.H. is a research associate and S.A. is a postdoctoral researcher of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). ExoMars is a space mission of the ESA and Roscosmos. The NOMAD experiment is led by the IASB-BIRA, assisted by Co-PI teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS), and the United Kingdom (The Open University). This project acknowledges funding from BELSPO, with the financial and contractual coordination by the ESA PRODEX Office (PEA grant numbers 4000103401 and 4000121493). M.A.L.-V. and J.-J.L.-M. were supported by grant number PGC2018-101836-B-100 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, EU) and by the Spanish Science Ministry Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant number SEV-2017-0709. M.R.P. and J.P.M were funded by the UK Space Agency under grants ST/V002295/1, ST/V005332/1, ST/S00145X/1, and ST/R005761/1. G.B. thanks the Italian Space Agency through grant number 2018-2-HH.0.

International audience; The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) package is an element of the Russian contribution to the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission. ACS consists of three separate infrared spectrometers, sharing common mechanical, electrical, and thermal interfaces. This ensemble of spectrometers has been designed and developed in response to the Trace Gas Orbiter mission objectives that specifically address the requirement of high sensitivity instruments to enable the unambiguous detection of trace gases of potential geophysical or biological interest. For this reason, ACS embarks a set of instruments achieving simultaneously very high accuracy (ppt level), very high resolving power (>10,000) and large spectral coverage (0.7 to 17 μm—the visible to thermal infrared range). The near-infrared (NIR) channel is a versatile spectrometer covering the 0.7–1.6 μm spectral range with a resolving power of ∼20,000. NIR employs the combination of an echelle grating with an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) as diffraction order selector. This channel will be mainly operated in solar occultation and nadir, and can also perform limb observations. The scientific goals of NIR are the measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and dayside or night side airglows. The mid-infrared (MIR) channel is a cross-dispersion echelle instrument dedicated to solar occultation measurements in the 2.2–4.4 μm range. MIR achieves a resolving power of >50,000. It has been designed to accomplish the most sensitive measurements ever of the trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The thermal-infrared channel (TIRVIM) is a 2-inch double pendulum Fourier-transform spectrometer encompassing the spectral range of 1.7–17 μm with apodized resolution varying from 0.2 to 1.3 cm−1. TIRVIM is primarily dedicated to profiling temperature from the surface up to ∼60 km and to monitor aerosol abundance in nadir. TIRVIM also has a limb and solar occultation capability. The technical concept of the instrument, its accommodation on the spacecraft, the optical designs as well as some of the calibrations, and the expected performances for its three channels are described.

info:eu-repo/semantics/published

We present Cassini auroral observations obtained on 11 November 2016 with the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph at the beginning of the F-ring orbits and the Grand Finale phase of the mission. The spacecraft made a close approach to Saturn's southern pole and offered a remarkable view of the dayside and nightside aurora. With this sequence we identify, for the first time, the presence of dusk/midnight arcs, which are azimuthally spread from high to low latitudes, suggesting that their source region extends from the outer to middle/inner magnetosphere. The observed arcs could be auroral manifestations of plasma flows propagating toward the planet from the magnetotail, similar to terrestrial “auroral streamers.” During the sequence the dawn auroral region brightens and expands poleward. We suggest that the dawn auroral breakup results from a combination of plasma instability and global-scale magnetic field reconfiguration, which is initiated by plasma flows propagating toward the planet. Alternatively, the dawn auroral enhancement could be triggered by tail magnetic reconnection.

International audience; Temperature estimations at an altitude of about 95 km on the night side of Venus are provided. They are derived from hydroxyl nightglow emissions, observed in the infrared spectral range at 2.7-3.5 micron, using the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer on board Venus Express.

The electromagnetic radiation emitted by the Jovian aurora extends from the X-Rays presumably caused by heavy ion precipitation and electron bremsstrahlung to thermal infrared radiation resulting from enhanced heating by high-energy charged particles. Many observations have been made since the 1990s with the Hubble Space Telescope, which was able to image the H2 Lyman and Werner bands that are directly excited by collisions of auroral electrons with H2. Ground-based telescopes obtained spectra and images of the thermal H3+ emission produced by charge transfer between H2+ and H+ ions and neutral H2 molecules in the lower thermosphere. However, so far the geometry of the observations limited the coverage from Earth orbit and only one case of simultaneous UV and infrared emissions has been described in the literature. The Juno mission provides the unique advantage to observe both Jovian hemispheres simultaneously in the two wavelength regions simultaneously and offers a more global coverage with unprecedented spatial resolution. This was the case....

The Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) is an imager/spectrometer on board NASA/Juno mission for the study of the Jovian aurorae. The first results of JIRAM's imager channel observations of the H3+ infrared emission, collected around the first Juno perijove, provide excellent spatial and temporal distribution of the Jovian aurorae, and show the morphology of the main ovals, the polar regions, and the footprints of Io, Europa and Ganymede. The extended Io "tail" persists for 3 h after the passage of the satellite flux tube. Multi-arc structures of varied spatial extent appear in both main auroral ovals. Inside the main ovals, intense, localized emissions are observed. In the southern aurora, an evident circular region of strong depletion of H3+ emissions is partially surrounded by an intense emission arc. The southern aurora is brighter than the north one in these observations. Similar, probably conjugate emission patterns are distinguishable in both polar regions.

The Jupiter InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) aboard Juno observed the Jovian South Pole aurora during the first orbit of the mission. H3+ (trihydrogen cation) and CH4 (methane) emissions have been identified and measured. The observations have been carried out in nadir and slant viewing both by a L-filtered imager and a 2-5 μm spectrometer. Results from the spectral analysis of the all observations taken over the South Pole by the instrument are reported. The coverage of the southern aurora during these measurements has been partial, but sufficient to determine different regions of temperature and abundance of the H3+ ion from its emission lines in the 3-4 μm wavelength range. Finally, the results from the southern aurora are also compared with those from the northern ones from the data taken during the same perijove pass and reported by Dinelli et al. (2017).

NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery) is one of the four instruments on board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, scheduled for launch in March 2016. It consists of a suite of three high-resolution spectrometers - SO (Solar Occultation), LNO (Limb, Nadir and Occultation) and UVIS (Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer). Based upon the characteristics of the channels and the values of Signal-to-Noise Ratio obtained from radiometric models discussed in (Vandaele et al., 2015a, 2015b; Thomas et al., 2016), the expected performances of the instrument in terms of sensitivity to detection have been investigated. The analysis led to the determination of detection limits for 18 molecules, namely CO, HO, HDO, CH, CH, CH, HCO, CH, SO, HS, HCl, HCN, HO, NH, NO, NO, OCS, O. NOMAD should have the ability to measure methane concentrations, NOMAD has been made possible thanks to funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PlanetADAM no 4000107727). The research was performed as part of the >Inter-university Attraction Poles> programme financed by the Belgian Government (Planet TOPERS no P7-15) and a BRAIN Research Grant BR/143/A2/SCOOP. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement no. 607177 CrossDrive. UK funding is acknowledged under the UK Space Agency Grant ST/I003061/1.

The NOMAD instrument has been designed to best fulfil the science objectives of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission that will be launched in 2016. The instrument is a combination of three channels that cover the UV, visible and IR spectral ranges and can perform solar occultation, nadir and limb observations. In this series of two papers, we present the optical models representing the three channels of the instrument and use them to determine signal to noise levels for different observation modes and Martian conditions. In this first part, we focus on the UVIS channel, which will sound the Martian atmosphere using nadir and solar occultation viewing modes, covering the 200-650nm spectral range. High SNR levels (, NOMAD has been made possible thanks to funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (contracts no 4000107727 and 4000103401). The research was performed as part of the >Interuniversity Attraction Poles> programme financed by the Belgian government (Planet TOPERS, contract PAI no P7/15). UK funding is acknowledged under the UK Space Agency grant ST/I003061/1.

International audience; Martian aurorae have been detected with the SPICAM instrument on board Mars Express both in the nadir and the limb viewing modes. In this study, we focus on three limb detections to determine the altitudes of the auroral emissions and their intensities. We then use a model of electron transport in the Martian thermosphere based on a Monte-Carlo method to simulate and to understand the excitation processes leading to these auroral emissions.

International audience; A detailed search through the database of theSPICAM instrument on board Mars Express made itpossible to identify 16 signatures of the CO Cameronand CO2 doublet auroral emissions. These auroralUV signatures are all located in the southern hemisphere in the vicinity of the statistical boundary between open and closed field lines. The energy spectrum of the energetic electrons was simultaneously measured by ASPERA-3/ELS at higher altitude. The UV aurora is generally shifted from the region of enhanced downward electron energy flux by a few to several tens of degrees of latitude, suggesting that precipitation occurs in magnetic cusp like structures along inclined magnetic field lines. The ultraviolet brightness shows no proportionality with the electron flux measured at the spacecraft altitude. The Mars aurora appears as a sporadic short-lived feature. Results of Monte Carlo simulations will be compared with the observed brightness of the Cameron and CO2 + bands.

International audience; The NOMAD spectrometer suite on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will map the composition and distribution of Mars' atmospheric trace species in unprecedented detail, fulfilling many of the scientific objectives of the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission. The instrument is a combination of three channels, covering a spectral range from the UV to the IR, and can perform solar occultation, nadir and limb observations. In this paper, we present the science objectives of the instrument and how these objectives have influenced the design of the channels. We also discuss the expected performance of the instrument in terms of coverage and detection sensitivity.

We present a study of the terrestrial hydroxyl nightglow emissions observed with the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer on board the Rosetta mission. During these observations, the OH ?v=1 and 2 sequences were measured simultaneously. This allowed investigating the relative population of the v=1 to 9 vibrational levels by using both sequences. In particular, the relative population of the vibrational level v=1 is determined for the first time from observations. The vibrational population decreases with increasing vibrational quantum number. A good agreement is found with a recent model calculation assuming multiquantum relaxation for OH(v) quenching by O2 and single-quantum relaxation for OH(v) by N2. Key Points Earth OH(?v=1, 2) emissions are studied simultaneously with VIRTIS/Rosetta Relative OH population values for v=1 to 9 are derived from measurements Comparison with previous observations and models are provided.

We use a novel method to evaluate the global opening and closure of magnetic flux in the terrestrial system, and to analyse two interplanetary shock passages that occurred during magnetically quiet periods. We find that, even under these quiet conditions, where the amount of open flux was already low, the compression of the magnetotail by the shocks still created intense but short-lived bursts of flux closure reaching ∼130 kV, comparable to values obtained shortly after a substorm onset, although no expansion phase developed. The results, supported by a global MHD simulation of the space environment, point to a trigger mechanism of flux closure directly driven by the solar wind compression, independent of the usual substorm expansion phase process.

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) package is an element of the Russian contribution to the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission. ACS consists of three separate infrared spectrometers, sharing common mechanical, electrical, and thermal interfaces. This ensemble of spectrometers has been designed and developed in response to the Trace Gas Orbiter mission objectives that specifically address the requirement of high sensitivity instruments to enable the unambiguous detection of trace gases of potential geophysical or biological interest. For this reason, ACS embarks a set of instruments achieving simultaneously very high accuracy (ppt level), very high resolving power (>10,000) and large spectral coverage (0.7 to 17 μm—the visible to thermal infrared range). The near-infrared (NIR) channel is a versatile spectrometer covering the 0.7–1.6 μm spectral range with a resolving power of ~20,000. NIR employs the combination of an echelle grating with an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) as diffraction order selector. This channel will be mainly operated in solar occultation and nadir, and can also perform limb observations. The scientific goals of NIR are the measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and dayside or night side airglows. The mid-infrared (MIR) channel is a cross-dispersion echelle instrument dedicated to solar occultation measurements in the 2.2–4.4 μm range. MIR achieves a resolving power of >50,000. It has been designed to accomplish the most sensitive measurements ever of the trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The thermal-infrared channel (TIRVIM) is a 2-inch double pendulum Fourier-transform spectrometer encompassing the spectral range of 1.7–17 μm with apodized resolution varying from 0.2 to 1.3 cm⁻¹. TIRVIM is primarily dedicated to profiling temperature from the surface up to ~60 km and to monitor aerosol abundance in nadir. TIRVIM also has a limb and solar occultation capability. The technical concept of the instrument, its accommodation on the spacecraft, the optical designs as well as some of the calibrations, and the expected performances for its three channels are described.