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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS,
VOL. 37,
L12101,
5 PP., 2010
doi:10.1029/2010GL043606
Observations of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves along the dusk-side boundary of Mercury's magnetosphere during MESSENGER's third flyby
Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Space and Plasma Physics, School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D. C., USA
Space and Plasma Physics, School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
During the third MESSENGER flyby of Mercury on 29 September 2009, 15 crossings of the dusk-side magnetopause were observed in the magnetic field data over a 2-min period, during which the spacecraft traveled a distance of 0.2 RM (where RM is Mercury's radius). The quasi-periodic nature of the magnetic field variations during the crossings, the characteristic time separations of ∼16 s between pairs of crossings, and the variations of the magnetopause normal directions indicate that the signals are likely the signature of surface waves highly steepened at their leading edge that arose from the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. At Earth, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is believed to lead to the turbulent transport of solar wind plasma into Earth's plasma sheet. This solar wind entry mechanism could also be important at Mercury.
Received 13 April 2010; accepted 3 May 2010; published 18 June 2010.
Citation: (2010), Observations of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves along the dusk-side boundary of Mercury's magnetosphere during MESSENGER's third flyby, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L12101, doi:10.1029/2010GL043606.
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