Mercury's plasma environment after BepiColombo's third flyby - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (LPP)
Article Dans Une Revue Communications Physics Année : 2024

Mercury's plasma environment after BepiColombo's third flyby

François Leblanc
Ronan Modolo
Jean-Jacques Berthelier
  • Fonction : Auteur
  • PersonId : 968600

Résumé

Understanding Mercury's magnetosphere is crucial for advancing our comprehension of how the solar wind interacts with the planetary magnetospheres. Despite previous missions, several gaps remain in our knowledge of Mercury's plasma environment. Here, we present findings from BepiColombo's third flyby, offering a synoptic view of the large scale structure and composition of Mercury's magnetosphere. The Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA), Mass Ion Analyzer (MIA), and Mass Electron Analyzer (MEA) on the magnetospheric orbiter reveal insights, including the identification of trapped energetic hydrogen (H+) with energies around 20 keV e‑1 evidencing a ring current, and a cold ion plasma with energies below 50 eV e‑1. Additionally, we observe a Low-Latitude Boundary Layer (LLBL), which is a region of turbulent plasma at the edge of the magnetosphere, characterized by bursty ion enhancements, indicating an ongoing injection process in the duskside magnetosphere flank. These observations during cruise phase provide a tantalizing glimpse of future discoveries expected from the Mercury Plasma Particle Experiment (MPPE) instruments after orbit insertion, promising broader impacts on our understanding of planetary magnetospheres.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
s42005-024-01766-8.pdf (1.78 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte

Dates et versions

insu-04742763 , version 1 (18-10-2024)

Licence

Identifiants

Citer

Lina Z. Hadid, Dominique Delcourt, Yuki Harada, Mathias Rojo, Sae Aizawa, et al.. Mercury's plasma environment after BepiColombo's third flyby. Communications Physics, 2024, 7, pp.316. ⟨10.1038/s42005-024-01766-8⟩. ⟨insu-04742763⟩
80 Consultations
7 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

More