Heidelberg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 3: Planets and Small bodies

EP 3.5: Vortrag

Dienstag, 22. März 2022, 12:15–12:30, EP-H1

Revised Modular Model of Mercury's Magnetospheric Magnetic Field — •Kristin Pump, Daniel Heyner, and Ferdinand Plaschke — Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik, TU Braunschweig

Mercury is the smallest an innermost planet of our solar system and has a dipole-dominated internal magnetic field that is relatively weak, very axisymmetric and significantly offset towards north. Through the interaction with the solar wind, this field leads to a magnetosphere. Compared to the magnetosphere of Earth, Mercury's magnetosphere is smaller and more dynamic. To understand the magnetospheric structures and processes we use in-situ MESSENGER data to develop a semi-empiric model, which can explain the observations and help to improve the mission planning for the BepiColombo mission en-route to Mercury.

We will present this semi-empiric KTH-model, a modular model to calculate the magnetic field inside the Hermean magnetosphere. Korth et al. (2015 and 2017) published a model, which is the basis for the KTH-Model. In this new version, the calculation of the magnetic field for the neutral current sheet is restructured based on observations rather than ad-hoc assumptions so that the description is more realistic. Furthermore, a new model is added to depict the partial ring current. An analysis of the residuals shows a better visibility of the field-aligned currents. In addition, this model offers the possibility to improve the main field determination.