Solar Wind Interaction With the Moon

Details Solar Wind Interaction With the Moon Solar Wind Interaction With the Moon

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusmsm44a..05h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #SM44A-05

Physics

2780 Solar Wind Interactions With Unmagnetized Bodies, 5421 Interactions With Particles And Fields, 5443 Magnetospheres (2756), 6250 Moon (1221)

Scientific paper

Earth's Moon, lacking both a global magnetic field and any significant atmosphere, presents an ideal location to study plasma flow past a solar system body in one of its simplest incarnations. Despite its relative simplicity, however, the lunar plasma wake interaction displays a rich array of interesting physics, with aspects of both fluid and kinetic behavior that may also prove relevant to smaller obstacles (such as asteroids) or those with more significant magnetic fields. We present a new study of the solar wind interaction with the Moon, using data from the Lunar Prospector (LP) spacecraft to characterize the plasma environment very near the Moon. We utilize magnetometer and electrostatic analyzer measurements from 3813 LP orbits to determine the local magnetic field and electrostatic potential with unprecedented resolution at altitudes of 15-120 km. This exceptionally large data set allows us to examine the low-altitude lunar wake in detail, including its variation with altitude and its symmetry properties. By using WIND to monitor the ambient solar wind (shifting the data appropriately to take into account the separation between WIND and LP), we can also sort LP data by solar wind magnetic field, density, temperature, velocity, etc. to determine how the lunar wake responds to varying plasma conditions and magnetic field orientations. At 80-120 km above the Moon, we observe a "classical" lunar wake signature, with enhanced magnetic fields in the central wake (ensuring pressure balance) and reduced fields near the wake boundary due to diamagnetic currents, together with an ambipolar potential drop across the wake boundary (resulting in central wake potentials 300-400 V negative relative to the solar wind). On some orbits, we also see large magnetic field perturbations ("limb shocks") caused by interactions with crustal magnetic sources near the limb. At lower altitudes, we see a gradual transition from this classical magnetic signature to a more disordered signature, which is influenced more directly by local crustal fields. The observed wake signature at higher altitudes responds clearly to changes in solar wind parameters, while that at lower altitudes is again more disordered and depends more obviously on local crustal fields than solar wind conditions.

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