If satellites were in place with space elevator type cable holding a "friction generator" close to the Martian atmosphere, how far from the surface would the said device have to be? I don't need an exact answer. I am wondering if such a device might be seen with the naked eye while standing on the planets surface.
The improbability of such a device is not in question at the moment. Thank you.
Of course the second I comment that I won't research it...
The page Martian Meteor Showers repeats a claim that the altitude for, and magnitude of, meteors on Mars are roughly the same:
A 1996 paper in the journal Icarus by Adolfsson, Gustafson and Murray has pointed out that, although the atmospheric pressure at the surface is less than one percent the respective value at the Earth, the larger mean scale height of the atmosphere means that at an altitude of ~120km where meteoroids begin to ablate, atmospheric densities are comparable. As a result, meteors of the same mass and atmospheric entry speed at the atmospheres would be of similar magnitude . Taking into account the slower average speed of incoming material at the heliocentric distance of Mars from the Sun, a meteoroid of the same mass entering the martian atmosphere at 30km/sec would produce a meteor +0.5 mag fainter than at Earth.
So, 120km and yes, it could be visible.
Adolfsson, Gustafson and Murray, The Martian Atmosphere as a Meteoroid Detector Icarus, Volume 119, Issue 1, January 1996, Pages 144-152, https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.1996.0007
