First BepiColombo Flyby of Mercury Finds Electron Rain Triggers X-Ray Auroras
Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) Press Release
BepiColombo, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, has revealed how electrons raining down onto the surface of Mercury can trigger high-energy auroras.
The mission, which has been enroute to the Solar System’s innermost planet since 2018, successfully carried out its first Mercury flyby on 1 October 2021. An international team of researchers analysed data from three of BepiColombo’s instruments during the encounter. The outcomes of this study have been published today in the scientific journal, Nature Communications.
Terrestrial auroras are generated by interactions between the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, and an electrically charged upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere. As Mercury only has a very thin atmosphere, called an exosphere, its auroras are generated by the solar wind interacting directly with the planet’s surface.
The BepiColombo mission consists of two spacecraft, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) led by ESA, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, named Mio after launch) led by JAXA, which are currently in a docked configuration for the seven-year cruise to the final orbit. During its first Mercury flyby, Bepicolombo swooped just 200 kilometres above the planet’s surface. The observations by plasma instruments onboard Mio enabled the first simultaneous observations of different kinds of charged particles from the solar wind in the vicinity of Mercury.
Lead author, Sae Aizawa, of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), now at JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and University of Pisa, Italy, said: “For the first time, we have witnessed how electrons are accelerated in Mercury’s magnetosphere and precipitated onto the planet’s surface. While Mercury’s magnetosphere is much smaller than Earth’s and has a different structure and dynamics, we have confirmation that the mechanism that generates aurorae is the same throughout the Solar System.”
During the flyby, BepiColombo approached Mercury from the night side of the northern hemisphere and made its closest approach near the morning side of the southern hemisphere. It observed the magnetosphere on the daytime side of the southern hemisphere, and then passed out of the magnetosphere back into the solar wind. Its instruments successfully observed the structure and the boundaries of the magnetosphere, including the magnetopause and bow shock. The data also showed that the magnetosphere was in an unusually compressed state, most likely due to high pressure conditions in the solar wind.
The acceleration of electrons appears to occur due to plasma processes in the dawn side of Mercury’s magnetosphere. The high energy electrons are transported from the tail region towards the planet, where they eventually rain down on the Mercury’s surface. Unimpeded by an atmosphere, they interact with material on the surface and cause X-rays to be emitted, resulting in an auroral glow. Although auroras had been observed before at Mercury by the NASA MESSENGER mission, the processes triggering the X-ray fluorescence by the surface had not been well understood and witnessed directly to date.
The study was carried out by a research team composed of the French Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), Kyoto University, ISAS, the Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (France), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany), the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, and Tokai University. The work was partially supported through Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure funding from the European Commission under grant agreement No 871149.
Publication Details
Aizawa et al. Direct evidence of substorm-related impulsive injections of electrons at Mercury. Nature Communications, 18 July, 2023.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39565-4
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39565-4
Image
Artist’s representation of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flying through precipitating electrons that can trigger X-ray auroras on the surface of Mercury. Credit: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) Thibaut Roger/Europlanet.
Science Contacts
Dr Sae Aizawa
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), CNRS-UPS-CNES
Toulouse
France
also at ISAS, Japan and University of Pisa, Italy
sae.aizawa@irap.omp.eu
Dr Yuki Harada
Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University
Kyoto
Japan
haraday@kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Dr Moa Persson
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), CNRS-UPS-CNES
Toulouse
France
also at University of Tokyo, Japan
moa.persson@irap.omp.eu
Dr Nicolas André
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), CNRS-UPS-CNES
Toulouse
France
Nicolas.andre@irap.omp.eu
Dr Go Murakami
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Sagamihara
Japan
go@stp.isas.jaxa.jp
Media Contacts
Anita Heward
Press Officer
Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI)
+44 7756 034243
aheward@europlanet-society.org
Further Information
The study used data mainly from Mio’s Mercury Electron Analyzer, MEA, complemented by data from the Mercury Ion Analyzer (MIA), and Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) instruments, which are part of the Mercury Plasma Particle Experiment (MPPE). The MPPE consortium is led by the Principal Investigator, Yoshifumi Saito, from ISAS in Tokyo, Japan. https://mio.isas.jaxa.jp/en/mission/#mission_01
About ISAS/JAXA
In October 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was established as an independent administrative institution, integrating the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL). ISAS became one of four principal sections within the newly established organization. Its mission is to advance space science – scientific research conducted in outer space – in Japan, mainly by collaboration with universities. It also actively contributes to JAXA’s and Japan’s entire space development.
ISAS’s new efforts and results in space science are published in Japan and shared with the international community, thus promoting JAXA’s status and enhancing Japan’s intellectual reputation in the world.
Web: https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/
Twitter: @ISAS_JAXA_EN
About Europlanet
Since 2005, Europlanet has provided Europe’s planetary science community with a platform to exchange ideas and personnel, share research tools, data and facilities, define key science goals for the future, and engage stakeholders, policy makers and European citizens with planetary science.
The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149 to provide access to state-of-the-art research facilities and a mechanism to coordinate Europe’s planetary science community. The project builds on a €2 million Framework 6 Coordination Action (EuroPlaNet), a €6 million Framework 7 Research Infrastructure (Europlanet RI) and a €10 million Horizon 2020 Research Infrastructure (Europlanet 2020 RI) funded by the European Commission.
The Europlanet Society promotes the advancement of European planetary science and related fields for the benefit of the community and is open to individual and organisational members. The Society’s aims are:
- To expand and support a diverse and inclusive planetary community across Europe through the activities of its 10 Regional Hubs.
- To build the profile of the sector through outreach, education and policy activities
- To underpin the key role Europe plays in planetary science through developing links at a national and international level.
Europlanet 2024 RI project website: www.europlanet-2024-ri.eu
Europlanet Society website: www.europlanet-society.org
Follow on Twitter via @europlanetmedia
