Multi-technique investigation of Mercury's southern magnetosphere based on BepiColombo first swingbys
- 1LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Université, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, 92195 Meudon, France
- 2European Space Agency, ESTEC, NL
- 3Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
- 4Planetary Plasma and Atmospheric Research Center, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- 5RISH, Tokyo University, Japan
The recent swingbys of Mercury by BepiColombo were the first ones ever to pass through the southern magnetosphere, revealing unseen signatures in observational data.
Our electron instrument SORBET/PWI can be used to identify signatures of boundary crossings, such as shock, magnetopause, but also trapped plasma population on closed magnetic field lines in the night side. To bring the observations along the swingbys into a global magnetospheric context, we employ the global 3D magnetohydrodynamic and hybrid models ARMVAC_PLANET (Lesia, l’Observatoire de Paris) and AIKEF (TU Braunschweig/ESA). A new step consists of injecting test particles (especially electrons) in the MHD simulations.
Exploring Mercury's magnetosphere is important both for modeling Mercury's intrinsic magnetic field and for recovering the properties of the upstream IMF once the probe is inside the magnetosphere. These latest results are a major asset for future coordinated observations planned for BepiColombo two spacecraft.
How to cite: Griton, L., Exner, W., Heyner, D., Houeibib, A., Issautier, K., Kasaba, Y., Kojima, H., Moncuquet, M., and Pantellini, F.: Multi-technique investigation of Mercury's southern magnetosphere based on BepiColombo first swingbys, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-18888, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18888, 2024.
