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.
Scholarly Commons Citation
Dang, T., Ma, X., Le, J., Zhang, B., Zhang, T., Yao, Z., Lyon, J., Xiao, S., Yan, M., Brambles, O., & Sorathia, K. (2022). Oxygen Ion Escape at Venus Associated With Three-Dimensional Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability. Geophysical Research Letters, (). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL096961
