Martian bow shock location over solar cycle 23-24 as observed by the Mars Express mission

The solar wind, which is material ejected by the Sun, interacts directly
with the upper atmosphere of Mars and its plasma environment. This
interaction region is enclosed by a bow shock, a boundary where the solar
wind is rapidly slowed so it can be diverted around the Martian space
environment. The Sun's solar activity, the behavior of its material
and light output over time, varies over many different periods, resulting
in a very dynamic Martian space environment. Studies of how the solar
cycle, a ~11 year variation in the solar activity, impacts the Martian
space environment has been inhibited by a lack of continuous observations
of the environment. However, the European Space Agency's Mars Express
(MEX) mission has surveyed the Martian environment for >11 years. The
data published here includes the outputs of a study exploiting the
longevity of this mission to investigate how the Martian bow shock varies
over this long period for the first time (Hall et al., 2019). In contrast
to previous time-limited studies, we show that the Martian bow shock
position is impacted by the solar activity, moving away from Mars as the
solar activity increases. These results are important to future studies
and missions that probe the interaction of the Martian atmosphere with the
solar wind. These files list bow shock crossings identified from the MEX
mission has been created based on the ASPERA-ELS instrument observations.
If this dataset is used, please cite the following two papers: Hall, B.,
M. Lester, B. Sanchez-Cano, J. D. Nichols, D. J. Andrews, N. J. T. Edberg,
H. J. Opgenoorth, M. Franz, M. Holmstrom, R. Ramstad, O. Witasse, M.
Cartacci, A. Cicchetti, R. Noschese, and R. Orosei (2016), Annual
variations in the Martian bow shock location as observed by the Mars
Express mission, J. Geophys. Res. Sp. Phys., 121 (11), 11,474-11,494,
doi:10.1002/2016JA023316. Hall, B., B. Sánchez-Cano, J. A. Wild, M.
Lester, and M. Holmstrom (2019), The Martian bow shock over solar cycle
23-24 as observed by the Mars Express mission, J. Geophys. Res. Sp. Phys.
(DOI etc to be added upon publication of the paper)