Mercury Bow Shock Results

Collisionless shocks are abundant in the universe, and they can for example be found both inherently in the solar wind and as bow shocks sunward of planets and comets. The terrestrial bow shock is the closest, most accesible, and most well-studied such object, however, recent planetary missions have made it possible to as look at some of the other planet in our solar system. These new measurements allow us to test and try our understanding in a broader perspective, and within different parameter regimes.
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Quasi-Trapped Particles in the Hermean Magnetosphere

Mercury has its own magnetic field as has been revealed by Mariner 10 in 1970's and confirmed by NASA's MESSENGER mission recently. Even if the planetary magnetic dipole strength is about 2500 times smaller, it is sufficient to form magnetosphere structure similar to the Earth's magnetosphere. Due to the minimum data from in-situ measurements, there are lot of open questions on the magnetospheric properties and processes. Global numerical simulations helps to address and answer some of them. Simulations proved useful for predictions of features to be investigated using real data and they give global context to local measurements. Read more