Material that is ejected from comets reflects light, giving them their characteristic dust tails. This material is spread throughout the solar system and makes up the interplanetary dust enviroment. When planets move through this environment, some of this dust falls into the upper atmosphere, which results in shooting stars. When a planet passes through the orbit of a comet, that planet experiences a meteor shower. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission's primary remote sensing instrument, the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectragraph (IUVS) makes altitude profiles of the Martian atmosphere to characterize neutral and ion species. I use this instrument to study the persitant meteoric layer found at Mars.
Selected Recent Publications:
Crismani, Matteo MJ, et al. "Ultraviolet observations of the hydrogen coma of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) by MAVEN/IUVS." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 8803-8809.
Schneider, N. M., et al. "MAVEN IUVS observations of the aftermath of the Comet Siding Spring meteor shower on Mars." Geophysical Research Letters 42.12 (2015): 4755-4761.
Schneider, Nicholas M., et al. "Discovery of diffuse aurora on Mars." Science 350.6261 (2015): aad0313.
Jakosky, Bruce M., et al. "MAVEN observations of the response of Mars to an interplanetary coronal mass ejection." Science 350.6261 (2015): aad0210
Bougher, Stephen, et al. "Early MAVEN Deep Dip campaign reveals thermosphere and ionosphere variability." Science 350.6261 (2015): aad0459.
Stevens, Michael H., et al. "New observations of molecular nitrogen in the Martian upper atmosphere by IUVS on MAVEN." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9050-9056.
Evans, J. Scott, et al. "Retrieval of CO2 and N2 in the Martian thermosphere using dayglow observations by IUVS on MAVEN." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9040-9049.
Chaffin, Michael S., et al. "Three‐dimensional structure in the Mars H corona revealed by IUVS on MAVEN." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9001-9008.
Deighan, Justin, et al. "MAVEN IUVS observation of the hot oxygen corona at Mars." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9009-9014.
Jain, Sonal K., et al. "The structure and variability of Mars upper atmosphere as seen in MAVEN/IUVS dayglow observations." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9023-9030.
Lo, Daniel Y., et al. "Nonmigrating tides in the Martian atmosphere as observed by MAVEN IUVS." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9057-9063.
Chaufray, Jean-Yves, et al. "Study of the Martian cold oxygen corona from the O I 130.4 nm by IUVS/MAVEN." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9031-9039.
Gröller, Hannes, et al. "Probing the Martian atmosphere with MAVEN/IUVS stellar occultations." Geophysical Research Letters 42.21 (2015): 9064-9070
Laughlin, Gregory, Matteo Crismani, and Fred C. Adams. "On the anomalous radii of the transiting extrasolar planets." The Astrophysical Journal Letters 729.1 (2011): L7.