Energetic Particle Radiation Environment Observed by RAD on the Surface of Mars During the September 2017 Event
Open accessAbstract
The 10–12 September Solar Energetic Particle event produced the strongest increase of the radiation environment measured by the Radiation Assessment Detector on the surface of Mars since landing in August 2012. We report the details of the measurements of the energetic particle environment from Radiation Assessment Detector in Gale crater during this event. The Solar Energetic Particle event increased the low‐energy proton flux (below 100 MeV) by a factor of 30, and the higher‐energy proton flux by a factor of 4, above preevent levels. The 4 He flux (below 100 MeV/nuc) rose by factors up to 10, and neutral particles by a factor of 2 above background. The increase started on 10 September around 19:50 UTC, peak‐level fluxes were reached on the morning of 11 September and prevailed for about 10 hr before decreasing toward background levels. The onset of a Forbush decrease on 13 September decreased the proton flux below preevent intensities.
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RAD has detected only a few SEP events on Mars over eight years of operation, and all were small apart from the 2017 September 10 event.
“During the 8 years of measurement on Mars, RAD has detected only a few solar particle events (distinguished as five peaks in the dose rate) as shown previously in Fig. 4, all of which are small apart from the 2017 September 10th event (Zeitlin et al. 2018;Ehresmann et al. 2018;Guo et al. 2018a;Hassler et al. 2018).”
From Radiation environment for future human exploration on the surface of Mars: the current understanding based on MSL/RAD dose measurements (2021) · cites this paper as Ehresmann et al. 2018
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredDuring the 2017-09-10 SEP event, the flux of protons with energies below about 100 MeV increased by a factor of 30.
“RAD observed that the flux of protons with energies below about 100 MeV was increased by a factor of 30 (Ehresmann et al. 2018;Hassler et al. 2018), and the dose rate doubled over the course of several hours after the event onset.”
From Radiation environment for future human exploration on the surface of Mars: the current understanding based on MSL/RAD dose measurements (2021) · cites this paper as Ehresmann et al. 2018
The total dose from the 10 September 2017 event observed with the MSL-RAD B sub-detector was 347 μGy in Si.
“The total dose from the event observed with the MSL-RAD B sub-detector was 347 µGy in Si (Zeitlin et al., 2018;Ehresmann et al., 2018;Hassler et at., 2018).”
From The Solar Particle Event on 10 September 2017 as observed onboard the International Space Station (ISS) (2018) · cites this paper as Ehresmann et al., 2018
The Introduction (p. 6) and Discussion (p. 14) describe RAD measurements of particle flux during the September 2017 event, while §2.1 (p. 7) identifies detector B as a silicon diode. Our copy does not report a total dose of 347 µGy in Si for detector B; searches for “347” and total absorbed dose found no such measurement. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Cites
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Lee, C. O., Jakosky, B. M., Luhmann, J. G., Brain, D. A., Mays, M. L., Hassler, D. M., Holmström, M., Larson, D. E., Mitchell, D. L., Mazelle, C., et al. (2018) · Geophysical Research Letters · doi:10.1029/2018gl079162 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
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Self-citationSpace Weather on the Surface of Mars: Impact of the September 2017 Events
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Self-citationNatural Radiation Shielding on Mars Measured With the MSL/RAD Instrument
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Ehresmann, B., Hassler, D. M., Zeitlin, C., Guo, J., Wimmer‐Schweingruber, R. F., Matthiä, D., Lohf, H., Burmeister, S., Rafkin, S. C. R., Berger, T., & Reitz, G.
- Affiliations
- Southwest Research Institute (US)
- Leidos (United States) (US)
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE)
- Department for Extraterrestrial Physics Christian‐Albrechts‐Universität zu Kiel Kiel Germany
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Ehresmann, B.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2018-06-14
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 5305-5311
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W2803672968
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 2.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- elib (German Aerospace Center) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1273039)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Planetary Science and Exploration
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Keywords
- solar energetic particle events, Mars radiation environment, Radiation Assessment Detector, Gale Crater, helium flux, neutral particle flux, Forbush decreases, Mars surface
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