Determination of Mercury's magnetic dipole moment which fits the measurements taken during Mariner 10's flybys.

Details Determination of Mercury's magnetic dipole moment which fits the measurements taken during Mariner 10's flybys. Determination of Mercury's magnetic dipole moment which fits the measurements taken during Mariner 10's flybys.

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..718a&link_type=abstract

European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a

Computer Science

Scientific paper

Abstract. A new "Paraboloidal" model of Mercury's magnetospheric magnetic field based upon the earlier terrestrial model and using similar techniques is developed. The model describes field of Mercury's dipole, which is considered to be offset from the planet's centre, the magnetopause currents driven by the solar wind, and the tail current system including the cross-tail currents and their closure currents at the magnetopause. The effect of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is modelled as a partial penetration of the IMF into the magnetosphere. The goals of the present work are: 1) to develop an easily usable, yet robust model of Mercury's magnetospheric magnetic field; and 2) to produce an improved "unified" determination of Mercury's magnetic dipole moment which fits the measurements taken during both Mariner 10's first and third flybys. This new model of Mercury's magnetosphere is described and used to determine a best Mercury magnetic dipole moment of 240 nT RM 3, from the two Mariner 10 flybys; a value which is intermediate between the various estimates produced by previous models. Best fit gives the dipole offset up to 0.1 RM above the equatorial plane. In preparation for the up-coming Mercury fly-bys by the MESSENGER mission this new Paraboloidal model is used to predict the configuration of this miniature magnetosphere under average and extreme solar wind conditions. EPSC Abstracts, Vol. 3, EPSC2008-A-00054, 2008 European Planetary Science Congress, Author(s) 2008 A new model of Mercury's global magnetospheric current systems has been developed based upon the Paraboloidal Model which has been successfully applied previously to the Earth , Jupiter, and Saturn. Using this model we have re-examined the Mariner 10 observations taking into account the IMF penetration into the magnetosphere and the global magnetospheric currents at the time of each encounter. The magnetospheric current model includes the magnetopause current that confines the planet's magnetic field to the magnetosphere and the tail current system consisting of the cross-tail current sheet and the closure currents at the magnetopause. Under the assumption that the solar wind interaction with Mercury is terrestrial in character, it was shown that the contribution of the external current systems into the total magnetic field in the vicinity of Mercury is significant even at the planet's surface. Determination of a rotation axis-aligned magnetic dipole moment value, 240 nT Rm 3, that is consistent with both of the Mariner 10's close encounters is one of achievements of the present work. We received some evidence for the dipole offset up to 0.1 Rm in northward direction, but more accurate calculations of the dipole position will require an additional study. Comparison of the model calculations with observation data obtained during the Mariner 10 MI and MIII flybys shows the important role which IMF plays in the Mercury's magnetosphere. Analysis of magnetic field measurements gives indirect indication that the coefficient of the IMF penetration into the Hermean magnetosphere is much larger than at the Earth and may approach unity when the upstream IMF is southward. This result supports earlier suggestions that magnetic reconnection between the planetary magnetic field and the IMF may be much more efficient at Mercury as compared to the Earth due to the lower Alfven Mach numbers found in the inner heliosphere.

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