Solar wind flow about the terrestrial planets: 2. Comparison with gas dynamic theory and implications for solar‐planetary interactions

Slavin, J. A.; Holzer, Robert E.; Spreiter, J. R.; Stahara, S. S.; Chaussee, D. S.

doi:10.1029/ja088ia01p00019

Cited by 95 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…The mean distance to the sub-solar shock at Mars is larger than at Venus when normalized by the respective planetary radius (Slavin and Holzer, 1981). The clear dependence of the shock position on the solar cycle observed at Venus is not outstanding at Mars (Zhang et al, 1990, andSlavin et al, 1983). These results could be interpreted in terms of an indirect evidence for the presence of a weak but significant intrinsic magnetic field of Mars.…”

Section: Mission Objectivessupporting

confidence: 49%

The PLANET-B mission

Yamamoto

Tsuruda

2014

Earth Planet Sp

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PLANET-B is the Japanese Mars orbiter program. The spacecraft will begin its journey to Mars in July 1998, and will be inserted into Mars orbit in October 1999. It will collect data for at least one Martian year (about two Earth years). The primary objective of the program is to study the Martian aeronomy, with emphasis on the interaction of the Martian upper atmosphere with the solar wind. The periapsis altitude and the apoapsis distance are 150 km and 15 Mars radii, respectively. The dry weight of the orbiter is 258 kg including 15 scientific instruments. Advanced technologies are employed in the design of the spacecraft in attempt to overcome the mass limitation. This paper describes the scientific objectives of the PLANET-B program and the outline of the observation scenario.

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Section: Mission Objectivessupporting

confidence: 49%

The PLANET-B mission

Yamamoto

Tsuruda

2014

Earth Planet Sp

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“…When the shock size dependence on obstacle size was examined by changing the obstacle size, the dependence was found to be weak. The observational results also did not show clear size dependence because the ratio for Mars is nearly the same as that for Venus (Slavin et al, 1983).…”

Section: Small Obstaclementioning

confidence: 64%

“…Since the solar wind is supersonic and the mean free path of the plasma particles constituting the solar wind is much larger than the size of planets, the collisionless shock is formed in front of the planet. The gas dynamic theory has been used to explain the location and shape of the shocks around Venus and Mars (Spreiter et al, 1970;Slavin et al, 1983). The solar wind interaction with these planets has also been the subject of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-dimensional hybrid simulation of magnetized plasma flow around an obstacle

Shimazu¹

2014

Earth Planet Sp

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The interaction between the magnetized plasma flow and an obstacle was investigated in the computer simulations described here by using a three-dimensional hybrid code (kinetic ions and massless fluid electrons). The results, which are relevant to the interaction between the solar wind and an unmagnetized planet (Venus or Mars), show that fundamental structures (bow shock and magnetotail) are formed. When a reflecting boundary is used at the obstacle, the magnetic field configuration was clearly asymmetrical in the direction of the convection electric field. This asymmetry is a result of differences in ion acceleration due to the convection electric field. Asymmetry is also evident when the size of the obstacle is close to the Larmor radius of protons. The shock of a smaller obstacle is weaker than that of a larger obstacle, but the shock size is almost independent of the obstacle size.

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“…SPREITER et ai., 1965;DRYER and HECKMAN, 1967;SPREITER and ALKSNE, 1969;SLAVIN et al, 1983). The hydrodynamic calculations are well developed and give predictions of flow, density and temperature throughout the magnetosheath.…”

Section: The Magnetosheathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetospheric Convection

Atkinson

1991

J. geomagn. geoelec

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Ideally, in the convection problem we should start at the bow shock and solve self-consistently for energy, momentum and plasma transfer in the complete downstream system. The state of the art is to study individual regions (magnetosheath, tail lobes, high-beta plasma sheet, and Bipolar region) and make assumptions about the boundary conditions connecting them to neighbouring regions. Plasma sheath convection can be approximated by the model of a blunt body immersed in a supersonic or super-Alfvenic flow with some degree of success. Improvements need to include the effects of the daysidemerging and the nightside expansion fan sections of the magnetopause on flow in the plasma sheath. Convection in the Bipolar region is fairly well understood in terms of the calculation scheme proposed by VASYLIUNAS (1972), but a self-consistent determination of the latitude of the high-latitude boundary is needed as well as a better understanding of boundary conditions. Understanding of convection in the high-beta plasma sheet and lobe is still very poor. The energy source is electromagnetic and can be represented as Poynting vector flow from the highlatitude magnetopause. We are still very uncertain as to the energy sink and the plasma sources and sinks in the plasma sheet. In the tail lobes, selfconsistency is needed between the field-line topology (including twists and open-closed configuration) and the location of and merging rate at X lines. Non-MHD processes are important at the boundaries between all the above regions. The System and the Ideal SolutionA measure of our understanding of a physical system, such as the magnetosphere, is the extent to which we can predict its behaviour starting from basic physics (in this case, plasma physics) and a set of initial and boundary conditions. In this paper, I shall attempt to evaluate how well we understand the magnetosphere. Figure 1 shows the system of interest. For the purposes of this paper, it is divided into the five regions indicated in the bottom half of the figure. These are the solar wind, the magnetosheath, and then within the magnetosphere: the tail lobes, the high-beta plasma sheet and the Bipolar region. The high-beta plasma sheet consists of closed magnetic flux tubes which are substantially distorted from a dipole-like form. Boundaries between these regions include: (i) the bow shock which, because it is a fast shock, is thin and clearly defined. (ii) the magnetopause which, in its simplest form, consists of a dayside merging configuration (X-line, slow shocks, magnetic islands?) connected to a downstream slow expansion fan which is not a sharp discontinuity, (iii) the plasma sheet boundary layer, also not a sharp discontinuity, which may be the result of merging at the nightside X line shown in the figure and (iv) the boundary between significantly distorted field lines and almost-Bipolar field lines. The two X-lines shown in the figure, one on the 183

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Solar wind flow about the terrestrial planets: 2. Comparison with gas dynamic theory and implications for solar‐planetary interactions

Cited by 95 publications

References 108 publications

The PLANET-B mission

The PLANET-B mission

Three-dimensional hybrid simulation of magnetized plasma flow around an obstacle

Magnetospheric Convection

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