1,2,3,4,5,2- 1Max-Planck Institute for Solar-System Research, Göttingen, Germany (exner@mps.mpg.de)
- 2European Space Agency, ESTEC, Leiden, Netherlands
- 3Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
- 4Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
- 5European Space Agency, ESAC, Madrid, Spain
Mercury's environment is populated with a tenuous exosphere consisting mostly of sodium. After ionization by solar radiation, these sodium ions take peculiar paths through the magnetosphere; being trapped along dipolar magnetic field lines, re-impacting on the surface, or being lost downstream.
Using the global 3D hybrid model AIKEF, we will investigate the effect of different interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) directions onto the ion's pathways through the magnetosphere. These model cases are then compared to BepiColombo plasma observations made along the swingbys 12346, aiding the magnetometer observations in the determination of the upstream IMF direction cases.
How to cite: Exner, W., Teubenbacher, D., Robidel, R., and Krupp, N.: Sodium Ion Distribution in Mercury's Magnetosphere as seen from MSB12346, EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2025, Helsinki, Finland, 7–12 Sep 2025, EPSC-DPS2025-692, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc-dps2025-692, 2025.
