George C. Ho

MESSENGER Observations of Magnetic Reconnection in Mercury’s Magnetosphere

MESSENGER from Mercury The spacecraft MESSENGER passed by Mercury in October 2008, in what was the second of three fly-bys before it settles into the planets orbit in 2011. Another spacecraft visited Mercury in the mid-1970s, which mapped 45% of the planets surface. Now, after MESSENGER, only 10% of Mercurys surface remains to be imaged up close. Denevi et al. (p. 613) use this near-global data to look at the mechanisms that shaped Mercurys crust, which likely formed by eruption of magmas of different compositions over a long period of time. Like the Moon, Mercurys surface is dotted with impact craters. Watters et al. (p. 618) describe a well-preserved impact basin, Rembrandt, which is second in size to the largest known basin, Caloris. Unlike Caloris, Rembrandt is not completely filled by material of volcanic origin, preserving clues to its formation and evolution. It displays unique patterns of tectonic deformation, some of which result from Mercurys contraction as its interior cooled over time. Mercurys exosphere and magnetosphere were also observed (see the Perspective by Glassmeier). Magnetic reconnection is a process whereby the interplanetary magnetic field lines join the magnetospheric field lines and transfer energy from the solar wind into the magnetosphere. Slavin et al. (p. 606) report observations of intense magnetic reconnection 10 times as intense as that of Earth. McClintock et al. (p. 610) describe simultaneous, high-resolution measurements of Mg, Ca, and Na in Mercurys exosphere, which may shed light on the processes that create and maintain the exosphere. Mercury’s magnetosphere responds more strongly to the influence of the Sun’s magnetic field than does Earth’s magnetosphere. Solar wind energy transfer to planetary magnetospheres and ionospheres is controlled by magnetic reconnection, a process that determines the degree of connectivity between the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and a planet’s magnetic field. During MESSENGER’s second flyby of Mercury, a steady southward IMF was observed and the magnetopause was threaded by a strong magnetic field, indicating a reconnection rate ~10 times that typical at Earth. Moreover, a large flux transfer event was observed in the magnetosheath, and a plasmoid and multiple traveling compression regions were observed in Mercury’s magnetotail, all products of reconnection. These observations indicate that Mercury’s magnetosphere is much more responsive to IMF direction and dominated by the effects of reconnection than that of Earth or the other magnetized planets.

MESSENGER Observations of Extreme Loading and Unloading of Mercury's Magnetic Tail

MESSENGERs Third Set of Messages MESSENGER, the spacecraft en route to insertion into orbit about Mercury in March 2011, completed its third flyby of the planet on 29 September 2009. Prockter et al. (p. 668, published online 15 July) present imaging data acquired during this flyby, showing that volcanism on Mercury has extended to much more recent times than previously assumed. The temporal extent of volcanic activity and, in particular, the timing of most recent activity had been missing ingredients in the understanding of Mercurys global thermal evolution. Slavin et al. (p. 665, published online 15 July) report on magnetic field measurements made during the 29 September flyby, when Mercurys magnetosphere underwent extremely strong coupling with the solar wind. The planets tail magnetic field increased and then decreased by factors of 2 to 3.5 during periods lasting 2 to 3 minutes. These observations suggest that magnetic open flux loads the magnetosphere, which is subsequently unloaded by substorms—magnetic disturbances during which energy is rapidly released in the magnetotail. At Earth, changes in tail magnetic field intensity during the loading/unloading cycle are much smaller and occur on much longer time scales. Vervack et al. (p. 672, published online 15 July) used the Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer onboard MESSENGER to make measurements of Mercurys neutral and ion exospheres. Differences in the altitude profiles of magnesium, calcium, and sodium over the north and south poles of Mercury indicate that multiple processes are at play to create and maintain the exosphere. Relative to Earth, Mercury’s magnetospheric substorms are more intense and occur on shorter time scales. 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 ~10 and typical durations are ~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.

Three-dimensional ring current decay model

This work is an extension of a previous ring current decay model. In the previous work, a two-dimensional kinetic model was constructed to study the temporal variations of the equatorially mirroring ring current ions, considering charge exchange and Coulomb drag losses along drift paths in a magnetic dipole field. In this work, particles with arbitrary pitch angle are considered. By bounce averaging the kinetic equation of the phase space density, information along magnetic field lines can be inferred from the equator. The three-dimensional model is used to simulate the recovery phase of a model great magnetic storm, similar to that which occurred in early February 1986. The initial distribution of ring current ions (at the minimum Dst) is extrapolated to all local times from AMPTE/CCE spacecraft observations on the dawnside and duskside of the inner magnetosphere spanning the L value range L = 2.25 to 6.75. Observations by AMPTE/CCE of ring current distributions over subsequent orbits during the storm recovery phase are compared to model outputs. In general, the calculated ion fluxes are consistent with observations, except for H+ fluxes at tens of keV, which are always overestimated. A newly invented visualization idea, designated as a chromogram, is used to display the spatial and energy dependence of the ring current ion differential flux. Important features of storm time ring current, such as day-night asymmetry during injection and drift hole on the dayside at low energies (<10 keV), are manifested in the chromogram representation. The pitch angle distribution is well fit by the function, jo(1 + Ayn), where y is sine of the equatorial pitch angle. The evolution of the index n is a combined effect of charge exchange loss and particle drift. At low energies (<30 keV), both drift dispersion and charge exchange are important in determining n.

Observational test of local proton cyclotron instability in the Earth's magnetosphere

We present a study of the proton cyclotron instability in the Earths outer magnetosphere, L > 7, using Active Magnetosphere Particle Tracer Explorers/Charge Composition Explorer (AMPTE/CCE) magnetic field, ion, and plasma wave data. The analysis addresses the energy of protons that generate the waves, the ability of linear theory to predict both instability and stability, comparison of the predicted wave properties with the observed wave polarization and frequency, and the temperature anisotropy/parallel beta relation. The data were obtained during 24 intervals of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) wave activity (active) and 24 intervals from orbits without EMIC waves (quiet). This is the same set of events used by Anderson and Fuselier [1994]. The active events are drawn from noon and dawn local times for which the wave properties are significantly different. For instability analysis, magnetospheric hot proton distributions required the use of multiple populations to analytically represent the data. Cyclotron waves are expected to limit the proton temperature anisotropy, Ap = T⊥p/T‖p − 1, according to Ap < aβ‖pc with a ∼ 1 and c ∼ 0.5, where T⊥p, T‖p, and β‖p are the perpendicular and parallel proton temperatures and the proton parallel beta, respectively. During cyclotron wave events, Ap should be close to aβ‖pc whereas in the absence of waves Ap should be below aβ‖pc. The active dawn cases yielded instability in 9 of 12 cases using the measured plasma data with an average growth rate γ/Ωp = 0.025 and followed the relation Ap = 0.85β‖p−0.52. The active noon events gave instability in 10 of 12 cases, but only when an additional ∼2 cm−3 cold plasma was assumed. The noon wave events fell well below the dawn events in Ap-β‖p space, slightly above the Ap = 0.2β‖p−0.5 curve. The lower Ap limit for the noon cases is attributed to the presence of unmeasured cold plasma. The quiet events were all stable even for additional assumed cold ion densities of up to 10 cm−3, the upper limit implied by the plasma wave data. The quiet events gave Ap < 0.2β‖p−0.5. At noon, the unstable component has T⊥p ∼ 20 keV and Ap ∼0.8. At dawn the unstable component has T⊥p ∼ 4 keV and Ap ∼ 2.3. Observed wave frequencies agree with the frequencies of positive growth, and the difference in frequency between noon and dawn is attributable to the combined effects of the different hot proton T⊥p and Ap and the inferred higher cold plasma density at noon. The dawn events had significant growth for highly oblique waves, suggesting that the linear polarization of the dawn waves may be due to domination of the wave spectrum by waves generated with oblique wave vectors.

Mercury's Magnetosphere After MESSENGER's First Flyby

Observations by MESSENGER show that Mercurys magnetosphere is immersed in a comet-like cloud of planetary ions. The most abundant, Na+, is broadly distributed but exhibits flux maxima in the magnetosheath, where the local plasma flow speed is high, and near the spacecrafts closest approach, where atmospheric density should peak. The magnetic field showed reconnection signatures in the form of flux transfer events, azimuthal rotations consistent with Kelvin-Helmholtz waves along the magnetopause, and extensive ultralow-frequency wave activity. Two outbound current sheet boundaries were observed, across which the magnetic field decreased in a manner suggestive of a double magnetopause. The separation of these current layers, comparable to the gyro-radius of a Na+ pickup ion entering the magnetosphere after being accelerated in the magnetosheath, may indicate a planetary ion boundary layer.

MESSENGER and Mariner 10 Flyby Observations of Magnetotail Structure and Dynamics at Mercury

increasing antisunward distance ∣X∣, B � ∣X∣ G , with G varying from � 5.4 for northward to � 1.6 for southward IMF. Low-latitude boundary layers (LLBLs) containing strong northward magnetic field were detected at the tail flanks during two of the flybys. The observed thickness of the LLBL was � 33% and 16% of the radius of the tail during M1 and M3, respectively, but the boundary layer was completely absent during M2. Clear signatures of tail reconnection are evident in the M2 and M3 magnetic field measurements. Plasmoids and traveling compression regions were observed during M2 and M3 with typical durations of � 1–3 s, suggesting diameters of � 500–1500 km. Overall, the response of Mercury’s magnetotail to the steady southward IMF during M2 appeared very similar to steady magnetospheric convection events at Earth, which are believed to be driven by quasi-continuous reconnection. In contrast, the M3 measurements are dominated by tail loading and unloading events that resemble the large-scale magnetic field reconfigurations observed during magnetospheric substorms at Earth.

Effects of wave superposition on the polarization of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves

Using data from the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers/Charge Composition Explorer spacecraft, we make a detailed comparison between the observed polarization properties of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves and those predicted by theory. The polarization can be described by three parameters: the ellipticity e, the ratio of parallel (to the background magnetic field B0) magnetic fluctuations δBz to the major axis component of the elliptical perturbation in the perpendicular plane δBmajor, and the phase angle between δBz and δBmajor. On the basis of the plasma parameters observed during EMIC events, we have calculated the linear properties of the theoretical modes and compared these to the observations. The result is that two and in some cases, three of the observed polarization properties are inconsistent with the assumption that the waves result from a single linear mode. We use a simple model with two constituent waves in various azimuthal orientations (around B0) and temporal phase relations and show that the distribution of observed polarization properties can be understood as resulting from the superposition of more than one mode. When there is superposition, the instantaneous polarization characteristics of the fluctuations do not reliably reflect the constituent wave properties and the minimum variance direction cannot be associated with a wave vector direction. Nonetheless, we have shown that the constituent wave properties can be inferred from the distribution of observed properties. For superposition of two waves with only slightly dissimilar characteristics, the constituent wave e is approximately the median observed e, e, and the constituent θkB (angle between the wave vector k and B0) is approximately given by tan θkB = δBz/δBmajor/e, with the overbar on δBz/δBmajor again indicating a median value.

MESSENGER observations of transient bursts of energetic electrons in Mercury's magnetosphere.

Despite having an internal magnetic field, Mercury does not have a Van Allen–type radiation belt. The MESSENGER spacecraft began detecting energetic electrons with energies greater than 30 kilo–electron volts (keV) shortly after its insertion into orbit about Mercury. In contrast, no energetic protons were observed. The energetic electrons arrive as bursts lasting from seconds to hours and are most intense close to the planet, distributed in latitude from the equator to the north pole, and present at most local times. Energies can exceed 200 keV but often exhibit cutoffs near 100 keV. Angular distributions of the electrons about the magnetic field suggest that they do not execute complete drift paths around the planet. This set of characteristics demonstrates that Mercury’s weak magnetic field does not support Van Allen–type radiation belts, unlike all other planets in the solar system with internal magnetic fields.

Oxygen 16 to oxygen 18 abundance ratio in the solar wind observed by Wind/MASS

Measurements of the 16O and 18O distribution functions in the solar wind at low to average solar wind speeds from the MASS instrument on the Wind spacecraft are reported. The 16O/18O density ratio is 450 ± 130, a value consistent with terrestrial, solar photospheric, solar energetic particle, and galactic cosmic ray 16O/18O isotopic ratios. This study constitutes the first reported spacecraft measurement of the isotope 18O in the core solar wind and may represent the best determination of the solar 16O/18O density ratio to date.

LONGITUDINAL PROPERTIES OF A WIDESPREAD SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLE EVENT ON 2014 FEBRUARY 25: EVOLUTION OF THE ASSOCIATED CME SHOCK

We investigate the solar phenomena associated with the origin of the solar energetic particle (SEP) event observed on 2014 February 25 by a number of spacecraft distributed in the inner heliosphere over a broad range of heliolongitudes. These include spacecraft located near Earth; the twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory spacecraft, STEREO-A and STEREO-B, located at ∼1 au from the Sun 153° west and 160° east of Earth, respectively; the MErcury Surface Space ENvironment GEochemistry and Ranging mission (at 0.40 au and 31° west of Earth); and the Juno spacecraft (at 2.11 au and 48° east of Earth). Although the footpoints of the field lines nominally connecting the Sun with STEREO-A, STEREO-B and near-Earth spacecraft were quite distant from each other, an intense high-energy SEP event with Fe-rich prompt components was observed at these three locations. The extent of the extreme-ultraviolet wave associated with the solar eruption generating the SEP event was very limited in longitude. However, the white-light shock accompanying the associated coronal mass ejection extended over a broad range of longitudes. As the shock propagated into interplanetary space it extended over at least ∼190° in longitude. The release of the SEPs observed at different longitudes occurred when the portion of the shock magnetically connected to each spacecraft was already at relatively high altitudes (2 Re above the solar surface). The expansion of the shock in the extended corona, as opposite to near the solar surface, determined the SEP injection and SEP intensity-time profiles at different longitudes.