Understanding plasma energisation and energy transport is a grand challenge of space plasma physics. Due to its proximity, the Earth’s Magnetospheric System provides an excellent natural laboratory for the investigation of these phenomena. Fundamental processes such as collisionless shocks, magnetic reconnection, turbulence, wave-particle interactions, plasma jet braking, and their combination initiate and govern particle energisation and energy transport. These processes occur in key magnetospheric regions including the foreshock, the bow shock, the magnetosheath, the magnetopause, the magnetotail current sheet, and the transition region.
ESA/Cluster and NASA/MMS four-point constellations, as well as the large-scale multipoint mission NASA/THEMIS, have greatly improved our understanding of these plasma processes at individual scales compared to earlier single-point measurements. However, these missions have also revealed that such processes inherently operate across multiple scales, ranging from large fluid scales to smaller kinetic scales, demonstrating the need for multi-scale in situ observations. In particular, simultaneous measurements at fluid and kinetic scales are required to resolve how energy is transferred between scales and ultimately converted into particle energisation and transported throughout the plasma system.
Building on previous single-scale missions, the Plasma Observatory (PO) mission represents the next generation of space plasma physics investigations. PO is a seven-spacecraft multi-scale mission, tailored to study plasma energisation and energy transport in the Earth’s Magnetospheric System simultaneously at both fluid and ion scales. Plasma Observatory has been recommended by the ESA science advisory committees for selection as the M7 mission in the ESA Science Programme.
This session invites submissions on multi-scale and cross-scale coupling, including simulations, multi-point techniques, instrumentation, and theory. Submissions addressing connections between in situ measurements, remote sensing, and ground-based observations are also strongly encouraged.