MESSENGER observations of extreme loading and unloading of Mercury's magnetic tail

Science
James A SlavinThomas H Zurbuchen

Abstract

During MESSENGER's third flyby of Mercury, the magnetic field in the planet's magnetic tail increased by factors of 2 to 3.5 over intervals of 2 to 3 minutes. Magnetospheric substorms at Earth are powered by similar tail loading, but the amplitude is lower by a factor of approximately 10 and typical durations are approximately 1 hour. The extreme tail loading observed at Mercury implies that the relative intensity of substorms must be much larger than at Earth. The correspondence between the duration of tail field enhancements and the characteristic time for the Dungey cycle, which describes plasma circulation through Mercury's magnetosphere, suggests that such circulation determines the substorm time scale. A key aspect of tail unloading during terrestrial substorms is the acceleration of energetic charged particles, but no acceleration signatures were seen during the MESSENGER flyby.

References

Jul 5, 2008·Science·Brian J AndersonRalph L McNutt
Jul 26, 2008·Science·Vassilis AngelopoulosLarry Kepko
May 2, 2009·Science·James A SlavinThomas H Zurbuchen

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Citations

Nov 28, 2013·Chemical Reviews·Chris J BennettThomas M Orlando
Jul 22, 2010·Science·Ronald J VervackNoam R Izenberg
Oct 1, 2011·Science·Thomas H ZurbuchenSean C Solomon
May 5, 2012·Science·James A Slavin
Jun 1, 2015·Journal of Geophysical Research. Space Physics·Haje KorthRalph L McNutt
Dec 22, 2017·Geophysical Research Letters·Haje KorthBrian J Anderson
May 29, 2018·Scientific Reports·Xiaohong LiRobert Erdélyi
Aug 7, 2019·Physical Review Letters·Tanmoy SamantaValery M Nakariakov

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