Pressure balance in the Martian ionosphere - Solar Wind interaction

Abstract: Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and its interaction with the solar wind is a quite interesting subject tostudy. While it is a rocky planet it doesn't have an intrinsic magnetic eld, but an ionosphere, created by thephotoionization of a relatively thin atmosphere. In addition there are magnetic "patches" on its surface, remnantsof an ancient fossilized magnetic eld. All these factors make the study of its interaction with the solar wind quiteintriguing. In this work we tried to extract information about the electron population and the magnetic eld intensity aroundthe planet, but also about the corresponding pressures to those magnitudes: electron -thermal- and magneticpressure respectively. Also, we tried to determine the position of the magnetic pileup boundary (MPB) andcompare it to the theoretical one, and lastly, we search for any possible structures along the MPB -both aboveand below it- by analyzing the ratio of the above mentioned pressures.We used data collected by Mars AdvancedRadar for Subsurface andIonosphereSounding (MARSIS), in a period of almost 9 years - December 2005 to May2014.