THE EFFECTS OF PLANETARY ROTATION ON THE EXOSPHERIC DENSITY DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE EARTH AND MARS

We investigate the effects of planetary rotation on the exospheres of the earth and Mars with simple collisionless models. We develope a numerical code that computes exospheric densities by integrating velocity functions at the exobase with a 10 point Gauss method. It is assumed in the model that atoms above the exobase altitude move collisionlessly on an orbit under the planet's gravity. Temperatures and densities at the exobase over the globe are adopted from MSIS-86 for the earth and from Bougher et al's MTGCM for Mars. For both the earth and Mars, the rotation affects the exospheric density distribution significantly in two ways: (1) the variation of the exospheric density distribution is shifted toward the rotational direction with respect to the variation at the exobase, (2) the exospheric densities in general increase over the non-rotating case. We find that the rotational effects are more significant for lower thermospheric temperatures. Both the enhancement of densities and shift of the exospheric distribution due to rotation have not been considered in previous models of Martian exosphere. Our non-spherical distribution with the rotational effects should contribute to refining the hot oxygen corona models of Mars which so far assume simple geometry. Our model will also help in analyzing exospheric data to be measured by the upcoming Nozomi mission to Mars.