RESEARCH LETTER Direct Observations of Magnetic Reconnections at the

10.1029/2024GL108880
Magnetopause of the Martian Mini‐Magnetosphere
Key Points:
R. T. Lin1 , S. Y. Huang1 , Z. G. Yuan1 , K. Jiang1 , H. H. Wu1, and Q. Y. Xiong1
• Magnetic reconnection at the Martian
mini‐magnetopause is reported for the 1
Hubei Luojia Laboratory, School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
first time
• Proton and oxygen ions from the mini‐
magnetosphere are accelerated during
magnetic reconnection
Abstract While Mars lacks a global intrinsic magnetic field, it does exhibit crustal magnetic anomalies
• Magnetic reconnection at the mini‐ (mostly in its Southern Hemisphere). These crustal magnetic anomalies directly interact with solar wind, which
magnetopause could cause solar wind forms a mini‐magnetosphere and a region denoted the mini‐magnetopause. Using magnetic field and plasma
to enter the mini‐magnetosphere
measurements from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, we report a novel case of magnetic
reconnection at the Martian mini‐magnetopause. In this process, protons and oxygen ions from the Martian
Correspondence to: atmosphere were accelerated during reconnection and likely escaped along the outflow direction. Magnetic
S. Y. Huang, reconnection may occur between the interplanetary magnetic field and crustal magnetic fields at the Martian
[email protected]
mini‐magnetopause, which contributes to planetary ion escape, solar wind entering the mini‐magnetosphere and
the evolution of magnetic topology in the dayside Martian mini‐magnetosphere.
Citation:
Lin, R. T., Huang, S. Y., Yuan, Z. G.,
Jiang, K., Wu, H. H., & Xiong, Q. Y.
Plain Language Summary While Mars lacks a global intrinsic magnetic field, it does exhibit crustal
(2024). Direct observations of magnetic magnetic anomalies. The solar wind from the sun accompanied by interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) directly
reconnections at the magnetopause of the interacts with this crustal magnetic field, similar to what occurs on Earth, albeit at a smaller scale. The boundary
Martian mini‐magnetosphere. Geophysical between the crustal field on Mars and the IMF is called the mini‐magnetopause. Magnetic reconnection is a
Research Letters, 51, e2024GL108880.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL108880 fundamental process in astrophysical and space plasmas that can change the topology of magnetic field and
effectively convert magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy. Using magnetic field and plasma
Received 26 FEB 2024 measurements from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution missions, we report direction observations of
Accepted 14 JUN 2024
magnetic reconnection at the Martian mini‐magnetopause. Through magnetic reconnection at the mini‐
magnetopause, the IMF reconnects with the magnetic field from the crustal field, forming new magnetic field
lines that channel solar wind to enter the Martian atmosphere and planetary plasmas to escape.

1. Introduction
While Mars lacks a global intrinsic magnetic field, crustal magnetic anomalies were discovered on Mars by the
Mars Global Surveyor orbiter (Acuña et al., 1998). The corresponding crustal magnetic field can interact with the
interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), producing an intricate magnetic field topology and mini‐magnetosphere
(e.g., Brain et al., 2003, 2007; Fan et al., 2023; Harnett & Winglee, 2005; Ma et al., 2014; M. Wang
et al., 2022). The boundary between shocked solar wind and the mini‐magnetosphere is denoted the mini‐
magnetopause, and this region is similar to the boundary between the magnetosheath and intrinsic magnetosphere.

Crustal fields can deflect global ion flow, which reduces ion escape from the Martian atmosphere (Fan
et al., 2019, 2020). However, this process does not indicate that crustal fields can repel all external plasmas.
Wedge‐like dispersion structures of hydrogen ions, likely originating from solar wind, are observed within crustal
fields (Zhang et al., 2023), indicating that channel(s) exist for solar wind to enter crustal fields. Because the mini‐
magnetopause is the boundary between solar wind and crustal fields on the dayside, it is important for us to
investigate the direct interaction at the mini‐magnetopause, which is also a direct connection between the solar
wind and the mini‐magnetosphere.

© 2024. The Authors. Geophysical Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in astrophysical and space plasmas that can change the topology
Research Letters published by Wiley of magnetic field and effectively convert magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy (e.g., Biskamp, 1986;
Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Deng & Matsumoto, 2001; Eastwood et al., 2008, 2015; Huang et al., 2012, 2014, 2022, 2023, 2024; Jiang
Geophysical Union.
This is an open access article under the et al., 2019, 2021, 2022; Vasyliunas, 1975; Xiong et al., 2022, 2023, 2024). Magnetic reconnection is observed at
terms of the Creative Commons the dayside magnetopause in the terrestrial magnetosphere (Burch & Phan, 2016; Huang et al., 2021; Phan
Attribution License, which permits use, et al., 2000) and at the Martian‐induced magnetopause (J. Wang et al., 2021). The first direct in situ measurements
distribution and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is of dayside reconnection signatures over strong crustal magnetic fields were presented by Harada et al. (2018), and
properly cited. these results confirmed that the crustal field on the dayside can directly reconnect with the draped magnetic field.

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Cravens et al. (2020) evaluated the role of magnetic reconnection in the dayside ionosphere of Mars in the
collisional regime. Magnetic reconnection across crustal field regions in the Martian magnetotail has been re-
ported (Chen et al., 2023; Lin et al., 2024). Recently, a magnetohydrodynamic simulation showed dayside
magnetic reconnection between the solar wind and the Martian crustal field (M. Wang et al., 2022). However,
direct magnetic reconnection between shocked solar wind and the mini‐magnetosphere at the mini‐
magnetopause, a candidate for direct interaction at the mini‐magnetopause, has not yet been investigated.
Using magnetic field and plasma measurements from Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), we
present a novel observation of magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause of the Martian mini‐magnetosphere
near the subsolar region. The acceleration of protons and oxygen ions during reconnection indicates that mag-
netic reconnection at the mini‐magnetopause contributes to ion escape from the mini‐magnetosphere.

2. Data and Instruments

The data used in this study were all from the MAVEN mission, particularly from Magnetometer (MAG; Con-
nerney et al., 2015), Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA; Mitchell et al., 2016) and Supra‐Thermal And
Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC; McFadden et al., 2015). MAG provides 3D magnetic fields with a frequency
of 32 vectors s 1. SWEA provides electron energy spectrogram and pitch angle distribution at a temporal res-
olution of 2 s. STATIC provides energy spectrogram of ions at a temporal resolution of 4 s and ion velocity at a
temporal resolution of 16 s.
The methodology developed by Xu et al. (2019) can be used to identify magnetic topology through the combined
use of two methods: identifying electron loss cones and identifying source regions of superthermal electrons. The
loss‐cone method has ambiguities on the dayside and the electron‐source method has ambiguities on the nightside.
Combining them can provide the most accurate and comprehensive topology determination (Xu et al., 2019). Low
electron fluxes (loss cones) detected at pitch angles of 0° and/or 180° indicate atmospheric energy absorption and
that the magnetic field line intersects the collisional atmosphere on one or both ends (e.g., Brain et al., 2007;
Weber et al., 2017). An open or closed field line can be deduced from a one‐sided or double‐sided loss cone,
respectively. If ionospheric photoelectrons travel parallel and/or antiparallel to the magnetic field, this implies the
presence of one or two foot point(s) that are embedded in the dayside ionosphere. Combining these two methods
enables the accurate inference of up to seven magnetic topologies on Mars: (a) closed‐to‐day, (b) cross‐
terminator‐closed, (c) closed‐trapped, (d) closed‐voids, (e) open‐to‐day, (f) open‐to‐night, and (g) draped.
These magnetic topologies are classified as closed fields, open fields, or draped fields, representing two, one, or
zero foot point(s), respectively, embedded in the ionosphere. Cases other than those mentioned are considered to
be of an unknown type (0).

3. Observations
Figure 1 shows an overview of the current sheet crossing event of MAVEN near the subsolar from 15:10 to 15:30
UT on 23 July 2020. Plasma and magnetic field measurements are shown in Mars‐solar‐orbital (MSO) co-
ordinates, where the x‐axis points from Mars toward the Sun, the y‐axis points opposite to the direction of Mars'
orbital velocity component perpendicular to the x‐axis, and the z‐axis completes the orthogonal coordinate set. As
shown in Figure 1a, the orbiter of MAVEN flies outbound on the dayside near the subsolar. The magnetic field
component Bz reverses from positive to negative during 15:19–15:20 UT accompanied by a decrease in the total
magnetic field (Figure 1b), which indicates the crossing of a current sheet (marked by two dashed lines). Before
the magnetic field reversal, the magnetic field magnitude is maintained at approximately 40 nT with little
perturbation; there are few electrons within 50–200 eV (Figure 1c), and the density of ions is as high as 100 cm 3
(Figure 1h), with oxygen ions being much denser than protons. Protons and oxygen ions are predominantly within
the energy band below 10 eV (Figures 1d and 1e). Magnetic field topology information estimated by this method
(Xu et al., 2019) shows that the magnetic field topology here is of the closed‐field type (Figure 1i). It should be
noted that in this case, although the low energy electrons (<30 eV) are missing, the other characteristics of
ionospheric photoelectron can still be seen (not shown). The orbit shows that MAVEN is 500–1,000 km above the
strong crustal field region (Figure 1j). All these observations support that MAVEN likely occurs in the Martian
mini‐magnetosphere. After the magnetic field reversal, the magnetic field is ∼10 nT and highly perturbed; there
are a large number of solar wind electrons (∼100 eV) and solar wind protons (100–1,000 eV), whereas the density
of oxygen ions is very low. The estimated magnetic field topology information demonstrates that the magnetic

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field topology here is of the draped‐field type (Figure 1i), and MAVEN is at
an altitude of 1,000–1,700 km (Figure 1j). This result indicates that MAVEN
is in the Martian magnetosheath. During 15:19–15:20 UT, the major ionic
component switched from oxygen ions to hydrogen ions, implying crossing of
the ion component boundary. The magnetic field topology changed from a
closed field to a draped field, combined with the change in the magnetic field
perturbation, indicating that the MAVEN crossed the mini‐magnetopause.
Therefore, a current sheet is observed by MAVEN at the mini‐magnetopause.
It should be noted that the region of the current sheet is located at latitude 27
degrees and longitude 220 degrees, where there exist strong crustal magnetic
fields (Gao et al., 2021).

Figure 2 shows the detailed observations around the current sheet during
15:18:30–15:20:30 UT and comprehensive evidence for the occurrence of
magnetic reconnection (marked as red rectangles). The magnetic field and
velocity vectors of ions are transformed from MSO coordinates to local LMN
coordinates. The current sheet normal points along N‐direction, L‐direction is
along the anti‐parallel magnetic‐field direction and M = N × L is in the out‐
of‐plane (“X‐line”) direction (Hapgood, 1992). The local coordinates are
obtained by minimum variance analysis (MVA; e.g., Huang et al., 2010,
2018; Sonnerup & Scheible, 1998), in which L = [0.36, 0.28, 0.89],
M = [0.28, 0.94, 0.18], and N = [ 0.89, 0.18, 0.42] in MSO coordinates using
magnetic field measurements in the time interval of 15:19:04–15:20 UTC.
The ratios of the eigenvalues corresponding to the maximum λ1 and inter-
mediate λ2 and between the intermediate λ2 and minimum λ3 are λ1/λ2 = 8.5
and λ2/λ3 = 12.97, respectively, indicating that the MVA results are reliable.
As shown in Figures 2b–2d, the magnetic field component BL reverses from
positive to negative (Figure 2b), and the component BM shows a bipolar
signature from negative to positive in intense plasma flow (enhanced proton
and oxygen ion velocity component VL in Figures 2e–2g). The upstream
Alfven speed estimated in the time interval between 15:18:30 and 15:19:00
UT is 29 km/s and that estimated in the time interval between 15:20:00 and
15:20:30 UT is 68 km/s. The mean plasma flow speed in the outflow jets is
about 20 km/s in the reconnection region, which is clearly lower than the
upstream Alfven speed. These features are consistent with the Hall magnetic
field in the ion diffusion region of the Hall reconnection model (e.g., Deng &
Matsumoto, 2001; Eastwood et al., 2008; Sonnerup, 1979). Therefore,
reconnection did occur in this current sheet. Notably, the velocity vectors of
oxygen ions in shadows on the draped field side are inaccurate since few
fluxes of oxygen ions are detected (Figures 2f and 2g). Ions, including H+,
O+, and O2+ (<10 eV), are obviously energized in the current sheet compared
to those in the closed field (Figures 2i–2k, marked as the yellow bar on the top
of Figure 2a). These features further confirmed the occurrence of magnetic
reconnection in the current sheet. The upstream magnetic field near the mini‐
Figure 1. Overview of the current sheet crossing event on 23 July 2020 magnetopause in the magnetosheath is approximately [By, Bz] = [0, 4] nT
during 15:10:00–15:30:00 UT. (a) Orbit of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
(Figure 1b). The position of reconnection region in the MSO coordinate is
Evolution in x‐ρ plane, where ρ = y2 + z2 ; (b) magnetic field in Mars‐ [YMSO, ZMSO] = [ 0.2, 0.2] RM. We calculated the Mars‐Sun‐electric field
solar‐orbital (MSO) coordinates; (c) electron spectrogram; (d, e) H+ and O+ ion (MSE) frame by the measurements of magnetic field in the time interval of
spectrogram; (f, g) velocity components of H+ and O+ respectively in MSO
15:25:00–16:10:00 UT (Ramstad et al., 2020), in which MAVEN crossed the
coordinates; (h) ion density; (i) the estimated magnetic field topology; and
(j) altitude. Dashed curves in (a) represent the bow shock and induced turbulent magnetosheath region. In the MSE coordinates, the position of
magnetopause models (Vignes et al., 2000), respectively and the black dot reconnection region is [YMSE, ZMSE] = [0.2, 0.2] RM. Thus, the reconnection
represents start of the orbit at 15:10:00 UT. Color in (j) is consistent with color event probably occurred in the MSE southern hemisphere. However,
in (i). Vertical dashed lines represent the reconnection region in the time MAVEN did not encounter the undisturbed solar wind or magnetosheath
interval of 15:19:05–15:20:00 UT.
regions but crossed the turbulent magnetosheath region, the MSE coordinates
here might not be an accurate reference. The electrons on the two sides of the

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Figure 2. Zoom‐in of the current sheet crossing event on 23 July 2020 during 15:18:30–15:30:00 UT. The magnitude and three components of magnetic field (a) in the
Mars‐solar‐orbital coordinates; three components of magnetic field in the LMN coordinates, that is, (b) BL, (c) BM, (d) BN; (e–g) velocity component along the L‐axis of
H+, O+, and O2+ ions with energy lower than 10 eV (VL) in the LMN coordinates, (h) ion density, (i–k) spectrograms of H+, O+, and O2+ respectively, (l) electron
spectrogram. Vertical dashed lines represent the reconnection region in the time interval of 15:19:05–15:20:00 UT.

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Figure 3. The cartoon of magnetic reconnection between the crustal field and the draped field at mini‐magnetopause. The
gray thick curve represents the induced magnetosphere boundary and the mini‐magnetopause. The curves with arrows
represent magnetic field lines. The warm curves represent the crustal field and the cold ones represent the draped field. The
dashed white curve with arrowhead represents the orbit of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. The dashed warm and
clod curves represent the original crustal field line and the original draped field line, which reconnects to the other. The cross
represents the reconnection X line. The green arrows represent the plasma flow.

current sheet are widely divergent (Figure 2m). There were few thermal electrons on the closed‐field side,
whereas there were dense thermal electrons on the draped‐field side. The estimated magnetic field topology
information indicates that magnetic reconnection occurs on the boundary between the closed crustal fields and the
draped field, which channels the plasmas from the closed field to escape from the mini‐magnetosphere. The
schematic in Figure 3 illustrates the process of magnetic reconnection between the closed crustal fields and draped
field at the mini‐magnetopause.

4. Discussions
On the night side of Mars, the magnetic field topology can switch frequently, which probably occurs due to
reconnection between the crustal field and the draped field (Harada et al., 2018; Weber et al., 2020) or the crustal
field itself (Chen et al., 2023; Lin et al., 2024). This process may similarly occur above the crustal field on the
dayside, where magnetic reconnection can occur and change the local magnetic field topology when the IMF
direction is opposite to the crustal field direction, as shown in the present study. The crustal fields mostly on the
southern hemisphere of Mars have multiple dipoles of different scales (Acuña et al., 1998), and the IMF direction
changes occasionally. Therefore, magnetic reconnection is likely to occur at the boundary between the IMF and
dayside crustal fields, that is, at the mini‐magnetopause, resulting in a more complex magnetic field topology in
the dayside mini‐magnetosphere.
It is commonly proposed that the dayside crustal field, or mini‐magnetosphere, deflects solar wind and protects
ions inside the magnetosphere from escape (e.g., Fan et al., 2019, 2020). This protection is attributed to the strong
magnetic pressure of the magnetosphere, while the magnetic field lines within the magnetosphere are attached to
the ionosphere at low altitudes, which prevents low‐energy ions inside the magnetosphere from leaving. How-
ever, when the magnetosphere reconnects with the IMF, the topology of the magnetic field changes, creating a
connection between the magnetosphere and its external environment (Figures 2i–2k). The planetary ions in the
reconnection outflow region are energized up to dozens of eV (Figures 2j and 2k), which is much greater than the
escape energy (the O+ escape energy EO+, escape ≈ 2 eV; the O2+ escape energy EO2+, escape ≈ 4 eV). Magnetic

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reconnection at the magnetopause of the mini‐magnetosphere clearly prevents the protection of ions from the
mini‐magnetosphere and provides an escape route for planetary ions.

It was recently reported that hydrogen ions, which possibly originate from solar wind, exist in the mini‐
magnetosphere (Zhang et al., 2023), although how solar wind enters the mini‐magnetosphere has not been
determined. When the magnetic field from the crustal field reconnects with the IMF, solar wind can enter the
crustal field region along these reconnected magnetic field lines. This example supports the abovementioned
conclusions, based on solar winds being observed in the crustal region as well as in the reconnection region during
15:14–15:20 UT (Figures 1d and 2i). This finding indicates that magnetic reconnection at the mini‐magnetopause
could channel solar wind to enter the mini‐magnetosphere.
To summarize, we report a reconnection event between the closed field and the draped field at the mini‐
magnetopause near the subsolar. Reconnection at the mini‐magnetopause changes the magnetic topology over
the crustal field. This effect channels the plasmas from the closed field to escape from the mini‐magnetosphere
and those from the solar wind to enter the mini‐magnetosphere.

Data Availability Statement

The MAVEN data used in this study are publicly available at the website: https://lasp.colorado.edu/maven/sdc/
public/data/sci/.

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