- 1National Institute of Astrophysics, Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, Italy (anna.milillo@inaf.it)
- 2Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria
- 3Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
- 4Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (LPP), CNRS, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Saclay, Palaiseau, France
- 5Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden
- 6Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, CNRS, CNES, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
Thanks to MESSENGER observations, we know that Mercury’s magnetosphere is highly dynamic, and it can be fully reconfigured in a few minutes, with strong influences of external conditions.
BepiColombo mission includes a comprehensive payload for the investigation of the environment. During the cruise phase, not all the sensors can operate for science measurements, however, during the swing-bys the magnetic field and particles in Mercury’s magnetosphere are successfully measured by the MPO and Mio payloads. In this presentation, we will focus on Mercury’s swing-by 2 (MSB2) observations in comparison with other swing-bys. During the MSB2, BepiColombo passed from dusk in the tail toward dawn in the dayside in a nearly equatorial path. The IMF turned from northward to southward during the crossing. The dayside magnetopause boundary was clearly observed, while the bow shock crossing was not clearly distinguishable. Close to the planet signatures of circulating high energy ions have been seen. While upstream the bow shock, foreshock ions have been observed.
H. Williamson, M. Wieser, M. Stumpo, D. Schmid, M. Rojo, I. Richter, J. Raines, S. Orsini, H. Nilsson, A. Matsuoka, V. Mangano, W. Magnes, S. Livi, G. Laky, A. Kazakov, H. Jeszenszky, A. Glass, D. Fisher, E. De Angelis, D. Delcourt, D. Constantinescu, U. Auster, A. Aronica, S. Aizawa
How to cite: Milillo, A., Varsani, A., Heyner, D., Hadid, L. Z., Baumjohann, W., Barabash, S., and Andrè, N. and the MPO/SERENA, MPO-MAG, Mio-MGF, Mio/MPPE-MEA and MSA teams: Mercury’s Environment Observed by BepiColombo during the Second Mercury’s Swing-by, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10436, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10436, 2025.
