Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...209.2520h&link_type=abstract
2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #25.20; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, V
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
While the solar wind interaction with the Moon has been studied since the first spacecraft missions to the Moon, little work has been done to quantify the lunar near space environment when the Moon is inside the Earth's magnetosphere. This is important though as oxygen ions can be accelerated up to MeV energies in the Earth's magnetotail. Advanced 3D multi-fluid model in conjunction with Lunar Prospector data is used to quantify the plasma environment when the Moon is in the Earth’s magnetotail from quiet to storm conditions. The multi-fluid model incorporates ion cyclotron and multi-ion species effects similar to hybrid codes but the fluid treatment enables grid refinement down to as small as 100 km. This high resolution is unique to the multi-fluid modeling, enabling the model to resolve the lunar near space environment in the context of the global terrestrial magnetosphere. Spectrograms of trajectories near the Moon and through the lunar wake show significant difference in the characteristics of the electrons, the light ions and the heavy ions. This implies that the behaviour of heavy ions can not be inferred from electron measurements. Results will be presented that address the composition, energy, density, and velocity of ions near the Moon for (a) quiet conditions and (b) sub-storm/storm conditions, and the overall geometry of the cavity and wake region of the Moon, specifically noting asymmetries of the wake for different incident terrestrial magnetospheric plasma conditions.
Halekas J.
Harnett Erika
Winglee Robert
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