Due to its proximity to the Sun, the space plasma environment of Mercury is tightly coupled with the interior and the surface of the planet, and their interaction facilitate the escape of planetary material and energy exchange. The authors present data from the third flyby of the BepiColombo spacecraft revealing new evidence of trapped energetic hydrogen (H+) with energies of around 20 keV/e and highlight the presence of cold ion population below 50 eV/e in Mercury’s magnetosphere.
- Lina Z. Hadid
- Dominique Delcourt
- Shoya Matsuda