Definition of Mercury Dipole Moment and its Offset Using the MESSENGER First Flyby data

Details Definition of Mercury Dipole Moment and its Offset Using the MESSENGER First Flyby data Definition of Mercury Dipole Moment and its Offset Using the MESSENGER First Flyby data

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.u21a0002a&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #U21A-0002

Physics

2753 Numerical Modeling, 2756 Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6033), 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, 5443 Magnetospheres (2756), 6235 Mercury

Scientific paper

Based on the "Paraboloidal" model of Mercury's magnetospheric magnetic field constructed by us previously, parameters of the global magnetospheric current systems are determined for the first MESSENGER flyby. The intrinsic unified planet's dipole moment parameters are derived by fitting the magnetic field measurements obtained by MESSENGER and Mariner 10. During both Mariner 10 first and third flybys on 29 March 1974 and on 16 March 1975, the orientations of the Mercury planet body relative to the Sun were the same. Due to Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, a solar day (the length between two meridian transits of the Sun) lasts about 176 Earth days (two sidereal Mercury orbit periods, or three sidereal Mercury rotation periods). As the time lag between Mariner 10 first and third flybys coincides with two Mercury solar days, the longitudes of the subsolar point on the Mercury surface (Mercury noon longitude) are the same for both these flybys and are equal to about 260 degrees. However, during the MESSENGER first Mercury flyby on 14 January 2008, the noon meridian longitude is different. This fact gives us a possibility to determine not only the dipole offset in a vertical direction (relative to the equatorial plane), but also the dipole offset relative to the origin in the equatorial plane. As it is shown by fitting of all (Mariner 10 and MESSENGER) magnetic field data, this offset is not negligible, as it was proposed previously. The more correct definition of the planet's dipole and magnetospheric source magnetic fields, probably, could be found by introducing of some new additional magnetospheric current systems, specific for Mercury.

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