From Earth Meteors to Mars: Predicting Where to See the First Martian Meteors

Abstract

Predictions of optical meteors at Mars have largely relied on classical single-body ablation models, despite high-resolution terrestrial observations showing that mm-sized meteoroids frequently fragment. This study quantifies how fragmentation alters the predicted brightness and peak-luminosity altitudes of sporadic mm-sized meteoroids in the Martian atmosphere and evaluates the single-body approximation as a reference baseline. Physical properties were inferred for 144 sporadic meteoroids observed on Earth using dynamic nested sampling with the erosion-fragmentation model. The resulting best-fit meteoroids were then re-simulated under Martian atmospheric conditions to generate predicted light curves. Because the physical trigger of fragmentation onset remains uncertain, three hypotheses were tested based on atmospheric mass density, dynamic pressure, and total accumulated heat. The results were also compared with predictions from a single-body ablation model. The data-driven simulations predict peak absolute magnitudes of $M_{\rm peak}\sim$ 2 - 7 for Martian meteors spanning diameters of 0.4 - 10 mm and entry speeds of 10 - 56 km/s. We find most events are luminous between $\sim$ 55 and 110 km heights. Relative to the single-body ablation baseline, the fragmentation-based predictions are brighter by $\sim$ 0.8 mag at peak brightness and concentrate luminosity within a narrower vertical range ($\sim$ 17 km instead of 36 km). The modelling accounting for fragmentation also produce shorter luminous trails ($\sim$ 20 km instead of 45 km). The resulting altitude-brightness maps provide observation-ready guidance for future Mars missions, while the fragmentation-based framework supports the interpretation of meteoroid-related ionospheric metal layers and improvements to Mars meteoroid-environment models.