Seminar: Exploring the response of Mercury’s magnetosheath to extreme solar wind

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. Its intrinsic magnetic field, though capable of generating a magnetosphere, is very weak. Mercury’s weak magnetic field, combined with the planet's close proximity to the Sun, results in a magnetosphere that is highly dynamic and strongly affected by a wide range of solar wind conditions – from the bimodal solar wind structure of fast and slow streams to extreme eruptive events such as interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). Mercury’s magnetosphere has been studied in-situ to a limited extent, leaving the fundamental question of how planetary plasma environments operate under extreme forcing largely unknown.

In this four-month seminar, we will present the initiated work in a project dedicated to advancing our understanding of the solar wind interaction with Mercury’s magnetosphere. Specifically, we will examine NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft observations of an ICME that passed Mercury in November 2011. Our analysis focuses on magnetic field data to identify the different regions of the magnetosphere and the ICME. We then compare the magnetospheric regions under stationary solar wind conditions with their counterparts during the disturbed ICME interval. With this study, we aim to deepen our understanding of Mercury's magnetospheric dynamics in preparation for the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to be inserted in orbit late 2026.