Submitting Campus

Daytona Beach

Department

Physical Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication/Presentation Date

3-9-2022

Abstract/Description

How oxygens escape from Venus has long been a fundamental but controversial topic in the planetary research. Among various key mechanisms, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) has been suggested to play an important role in the oxygen ion escape from Venus. Limited by either scarce in-situ observations or simplified theoretical estimations, the mystery of oxygen ion escape process associated with KHI is still unsettled. Here we present the first three-dimensional configuration of KHI at Venus with a global multifluid magnetohydrodynamics model, showing a significantly fine structure and evolution of the KHI. KHI mainly occurred at the low latitude boundary layer if defining the interplanetary magnetic field-perpendicular plane as the equatorial plane, resulting in escaping oxygen ions through mixing with the solar wind at the Venusian boundary layer, with an escape rate around 4 × 1024 s−1. The results provide new insights into the basic physical process of atmospheric loss at other unmagnetized planet.

Publication Title

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL096961

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

Grant or Award Name

B-type Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB41000000), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41831070 and 42188101), CAS (YSBR018), National Natural Science Foundation of China (42174198, 41904138), National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX20180286), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M642525), General Research Fund (17300719 and 17308520, National Natural Science Foundation of China (41922060)

Download

Share

COinS