Bow shock oscillations of Mars under weakly disturbed solar wind conditions
Bow shock, where the solar wind first encounters the Martian environment, reflects the complex interplay between the solar wind and Martian upper atmosphere and crustal fields. However, a comprehensive understanding of Martian bow shock dynamics remains elusive due to limited multi-spacecraft observations. Here, leveraging the joint observations from China's Tianwen-1 and NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), we reveal Martian bow shock oscillations with a temporal scale of minutes and spatial extents of hundreds of kilometers during weakly disturbed solar wind. Our analysis of the observations along with three-dimensional simulations suggests that magnetosonic Mach number is the most sensitive parameter influencing the bow shock, and a slow solar wind stream that favors low Mach numbers may lead to the large-scale bow shock oscillations and the whole Martian space environment. This finding advances our understanding of the interactions between the solar wind and non-magnetized planets.
Authors
- Yingjuan Ma
- J. S. Halekas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5258-6128)
- Tielong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0980-6292)
- R. J. Lillis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0578-517X)
- Aibing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3919-7843)
- B. Langlais (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5207-304X)
- Yiren Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3310-519X)
- Sudong Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3866-3403)
- Zhuxuan Zou
- Xinjun Hao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2433-0465)
- Yutian Chi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9315-4487)
- Kai Liu
- Guoqiang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6618-4928)
- Yuming Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8887-3919)
- Long Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0578-6244)
- Zonghao Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2626-4824)
Institutions
- University of Iowa (US)
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Hefei University of Technology (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Harbin Institute of Technology (CN)
- Université Nantes Angers Le Mans (FR)
- China National Space Administration (CN)
- Space Research Institute (AT)
- Le Mans Université (FR)
- National Space Science Center (CN)
- Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géosciences (FR)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Nantes Université (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-10-31
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65011-8
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Planetary Science and Exploration
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.15
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- University of Science and Technology of China