Search Publications
Radial and local time structure of the Saturnian ring current, revealed by Cassini
Krupp, N.; Dougherty, M. K.; Thomsen, M. F. +6 more
We analyze particle and magnetic field data obtained between July 2004 and December 2013 in the equatorial magnetosphere of Saturn, by the Cassini spacecraft. The radial and local time distribution of the total (thermal and suprathermal) particle pressure and total plasma beta (ratio of particle to magnetic pressure) over radial distances from 5 t…
Comparative study of the Martian suprathermal electron depletions based on Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission observations
André, N.; Fedorov, A.; Sauvaud, J. -A. +16 more
Nightside suprathermal electron depletions have been observed at Mars by three spacecraft to date: Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission. This spatial and temporal diversity of measurements allows us to propose here a comprehensive view of the Martian electron depletions through the firs…
Occurrence rate of whistler waves in the magnetotail reconnection region
Sahraoui, F.; Deng, X. H.; Huang, S. Y. +9 more
It has long been suggested that whistler waves play an active role during magnetic reconnection. However, all previous observations were based on case studies and could not give a detailed picture as to where the whistler waves occur in the reconnection region. In this paper, a statistical study by using the Cluster data is performed to investigat…
Reformation of rippled quasi-parallel shocks: 2-D hybrid simulations
Wang, Shui; Huang, Can; Hao, Yufei +3 more
One-dimensional (1-D) hybrid simulations have demonstrated that a quasi-parallel shock is nonstationary and undergoes a reformation process. Recently, two-dimensional (2-D) hybrid simulations have revealed that ripples along the shock front is an inherent property of a quasi-parallel shock. In this paper, we investigate reformation process of a ri…
Multipoint analysis of compressive fluctuations in the fast and slow solar wind
Escoubet, C. P.; Narita, Y.; Li, X. +2 more
Compressible turbulence in the solar wind is a topic of much recent debate. To understand the various compressive fluctuations at scales comparable to proton characteristic lengths, we use multipoint magnetic field and density data (derived from spacecraft potential which allows higher time resolution than is typically possible than with particle …
Mars plasma system response to solar wind disturbances during solar minimum
Holmström, M.; Odstrcil, D.; Lester, M. +16 more
This paper is a phenomenological description of the ionospheric plasma and induced magnetospheric boundary (IMB) response to two different types of upstream solar wind events impacting Mars in March 2008, at the solar minimum. A total of 16 Mars Express orbits corresponding to five consecutive days is evaluated. Solar TErrestrial RElations Observa…
The aurorae of Uranus past equinox
Lamy, L.; Badman, S. V.; Cowley, S. W. H. +9 more
The aurorae of Uranus were recently detected in the far ultraviolet with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) providing a new, so far unique, means to remotely study the asymmetric Uranian magnetosphere from Earth. We analyze here two new HST Uranus campaigns executed in September 2012 and November 2014 with different temporal coverage and under varia…
How Much Flux Does a Flux Transfer Event Transfer?
Milan, S. E.; Fear, R. C.; Coxon, J. C. +1 more
Flux transfer events are bursts of reconnection at the dayside magnetopause, which give rise to characteristic signatures observed by a range of magnetospheric/ionospheric instrumentation. One outstanding problem is that there is a fundamental mismatch between space-based and ionospheric estimates of the flux that is opened by each flux transfer e…
Constraints on Io's interior from auroral spot oscillations
Saur, Joachim; Roth, Lorenz; Feldman, Paul D. +3 more
The morphology of Io's aurora is dominated by bright spots near the equator that oscillate up and down in approximate correlation with the oscillating orientation of the Jovian magnetospheric field. Analyzing Hubble Space Telescope images, we find that the auroral spots oscillate in phase with the time-variable Jovian magnetic field at Io and that…
Observation of Three-Dimensional Magnetic Reconnection in the Terrestrial Magnetotail
Xu, Xiaojun; Lapenta, Giovanni; Huang, Shiyong +7 more
Study of magnetic reconnection has been focused on two-dimensional geometry in the past decades, whereas three-dimensional structures and dynamics of reconnection X line are poorly understood. In this paper, we report Cluster multispacecraft observations of a three-dimensional magnetic reconnection X line with a weak guide field ( 25% of the upstr…