Interplanetary magnetic field

Solar wind

Magnetic field

Physics

Geology

Dynamo

Magnetometer

Remanence

Dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field

Earth's magnetic field

Martian

Magnetization

Spherical harmonics

Atmosphere of Mars

Quantum mechanics

Geophysics

Mars Exploration Program

Astrobiology

Journal of Geophysical Research Planets

While devoid of an active magnetic dynamo field today, Mars possesses a remanent magnetic field that may reach several thousand nanoteslas locally. The exact origin and the events that have shaped the crustal magnetization remain largely enigmatic. Three magnetic field data sets from two spacecraft collected over 13 cumulative years have sampled the Martian magnetic field over a range of altitudes from 90 up to 6,000 km: (a) Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) magnetometer (1997–2006), (b) MGS Electron Reflectometer (1999–2006), and (c) Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) magnetometer (2014 to today). In this paper we combine these complementary data sets for the first time to build a new model of the Martian internal magnetic field. This new model improves upon previous ones in several aspects: comprehensive data coverage, refined data selection scheme, modified modeling scheme, discrete‐to‐continuous transformation of the model, and increased model resolution. The new model has a spatial resolution of ∼160 km at the surface, corresponding to spherical harmonic degree 134. It shows small scales and well‐defined features, which can now be associated with geological signatures.

A New Model of the Crustal Magnetic Field of Mars Using MGS and MAVEN