Mars atmospheric escape constrained using MAVEN IUVS coronal observations

Every planetary atmosphere is capped by a corona: an extended, extremely tenuous region where collisions are negligible and particles follow ballistic trajectories. At Mars, the corona is especially extended due to the low gravity of the planet, and a large number of coronal particles are on escaping trajectories. Such escape has played a critical role in the history of the Mars system, likely removing a substantial fraction of the water initially present on the planet, but the mechanism and magnitude of this escape remains poorly constrained. Currently in orbit at Mars, MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) is mapping the distribution of oxygen and hydrogen above 200 km at a high spatial and temporal cadence, revealing a dynamic corona in unprecedented detail. Results will be presented demonstrating that the H in the corona is not spherically symmetric in its distribution, and can potentially be used as a tracer of thermospheric general circulation; and that non-thermal "hot" O (in contrast with more spatially confined "cold" thermal O) is ionospherically sourced with a characteristic energy of 1.1 eV and responds to solar EUV forcing. These results will be interpreted in terms of their impact on our current understanding of how atmospheric escape operates today. We will also discuss how these processes may have acted in the past to deplete Mars' initial water inventory, potentially altering the redox balance of the planet and atmosphere through differential escape of H and O.