Martian ionospheric response during the May 2024 solar superstorm
- Jacob Parrott
- Beatriz Sánchez-Cano
- Håkan Svedhem
- Olivier Witasse
- Dikshita Meggi
- Colin Wilson
- Alejandro Cardesín-Moinelo
- Ingo Müller-Wodarg
2026-03-05
Solar energetic events can have considerable effects on planetary ionospheres. However, the erratic nature of these solar energetic events make observations difficult. Here we show a mutual radio occultation observation, which serendipitously occurred just 10 minutes after a large solar flare impacted Mars. This resulted in the largest lower ionospheric layer ever recorded, where it was 278% its typical size. We used in-situ soft x-ray irradiance measurements to show a threefold increase in flux. This infers a different relation of soft X-ray to this layer’s density than previously thought, with variations depending on the amount of spectrum ‘hardening’ leading to the increase of ionisation from secondaries.