New MAVEN NGIMS Mars Thermosphere Temperature Database for Short Term Variability and Long Term Trends

Abstract Current Mars thermospheric temperatures databases have course temporal resolution due to either a lack of data or a need to average over several orbits of data, preventing the study of short‐term, rapid changes to the Mars thermosphere. In this study, we present a new Mars thermosphere temperature database derived from individual orbits of Argon density data from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer instrument from 01/01/2016 to 12/31/2020 using a Newton gradient descent inverse method. This was enabled by the creation of secondary products like gravity wave potential energy, , the Knudsen number, , and pressure, designed to indicate when the variability in the data is beyond the assumptions of the temperature derivation and provide a better vertical axis to observe changes in the temperature. Here we present validations of the data set against previous models and data alongside some simple analysis of the temperatures in order to demonstrate the sensitivity of the data set to the nuances of the Martian thermosphere. This data set can better enable the study of thermosphere response to solar activity, dust events, and gravity waves.