A research team from Umeå University in Kiruna and the Swedish Space Physics Institute has discovered jet streams in Mars’ magnetosphere using data collected by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft. This is the first time such a jet has been found in the magnetosphere of a planet other than Earth. The results were published in the journal Science Advances.

The magnetosheath current is a bulk of plasma flowing in the magnetosheath. It differs from its surroundings in that it is faster or more intense, sometimes both faster and more intense. The magnetosphere is the part of space where the solar wind is forced to revolve around the planet.

“The jet streams in the magneto sheath have been observed near Earth for 25 years, and we were very interested to see if they could be found elsewhere,” says Herbert Gunnell, associate professor at Umeå University who led the study. NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since 2014 to study the Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind.

“Before MAVEN, we only had satellites around Earth with instruments fast enough to detect jets. But it wasn’t clear that we would find them on Mars because there are significant differences between the two planets. For example, Mars is smaller than Earth. And it doesn’t have a global magnetic field. “So the magnetosphere on Mars is much smaller than on Earth. Despite these differences, we now know that Mars also has magnetospheric jets,” says Herbert Gunnell.

“We’ve already seen that magneto-sheath jets produce waves and can travel through the entire magneto-sheath and into the region of the stronger magnetic fields below. We’ve just discovered that they exist on Mars, and it will be interesting to learn more about them and the role they play in the interaction between Mars and the solar wind.” Source