Mars Atmosphere Reveals Earth-like Zwan-Wolf Effect Under Solar Storms
NASA’s MAVEN mission has for the first time observed the Zwan-Wolf effect—an Earth-originated phenomenon where charged particles are squeezed along magnetic flux tubes—in Mars’ ionosphere during a large solar storm, a finding published in Nature Communications that suggests space weather can influence the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere and may operate at low levels even without a global magnetic field, with implications for atmospheric loss and insights for other unmagnetized worlds like Venus.