Student: Mirela Kapo, Undergraduate Student in Electrical Engineering, University of Iowa
Research Mentor: Dr. Ananya Sen Gupta
Ion Tracking in Martian Atmosphere
From previous missions to Mars we learned that long time ago Mars had a denser atmosphere and liquid water on its surface. In order to 
understand where the atmosphere went and what influence solar wind has had on Martian atmosphere, we analyze MAVEN data from Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA). We apply geometric principles to isolate, track and characterize escaping Martian ions, which helps us understand how they interact with each other, and how they interact with solar wind protons. We hope to develop an algorithm to track the trails of escaping ions from Mars across multiple scales and be able to apply it extensively across large volumes of SWIA data.