Corotating Interaction Regions at Mars: Observations by MAVEN

Authors: Sarah Henderson (Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA), Rachael Filwett (Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA), Christina Lee (University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA), Jasper Halekas (The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA), Jared Espley (NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, Greenbelt, MD)

Corotating interaction regions (CIRs) are solar wind structures resulting from the direct interaction between stable fast solar wind streams and slow solar wind streams. These structures have been thoroughly and actively observed at 1 AU for decades; due to lack of spacecraft assets, these events have not been characterized at 1.5 AU. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, however, provides us with an opportunity to fill this observational gap. We create a catalog of 184 CIRs observed at Mars between November 2014 and September 2023 by implementing MAVEN in situ solar wind and particle data. We examine the distribution of these events with respect to solar activity and solar cycle. We also discuss the presence of shocks within these events and characterize their occurrence rate.