Hydrogen in the extended Venus exosphere

Abstract

The nearly absence of water in the atmosphere of Venus is a major difference to the situation at Earth. The actual content of hydrogen in the exosphere is still an open issue, since no in situ measurements are available yet. A different method uses the presence of proton cyclotron waves as an early tracer of ionized planetary hydrogen picked-up by the solar wind, especially in the region upstream of the bow shock. Here, we report long-term observations over two full Venus-years of upstream proton cyclotron waves by the magnetometer on the Venus Express spacecraft, which indicate permanent ionization and pick-up of hydrogen by the solar wind upstream of the planetary bow shock up to high altitudes. The pick-up protons are shown to be of planetary origin, whereas other sources of neutral hydrogen have only negligible contribution. Therefore, the observation of upstream proton cyclotron waves in the solar wind is a clear indication for the existence of an extended neutral hydrogen corona at Venus, with significant local number densities up to an altitude of eight planetary radii. Recent observations of the exospheric Lyman-a emission also indicate hot neutral hydrogen densities which are higher than expected. © 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.