| Session Details | |
| Section | PS - Planetary Sciences |
| Session Title | Solar Wind Interaction with Planetary Environments |
| Main Convener | Dr. Dominique Delcourt (LPP - CNRS, France) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Kanako Seki (Nagoya University, Japan) Dr. Francois Leblanc (CNRS, France) Dr. Pontus Brandt (The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Labor, United States) Dr. Anil Bhardwaj (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, India) Dr. Anil Bhardwaj (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, India) Dr. Anil Bhardwaj (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, India) |
| Session Description | With Cassini at Saturn, Kaguya and Chandrayaan and now Chang'e 2 at the Moon, Messenger at Mercury as well as other planetary missions that provide a wealth of information (e.g., Venus Express, Mars Express, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter...) or are in preparation (Bepi Colombo, Phobos Grunt...), it is timely to put into perspective the common knowledge that has been accumulated for many years about the only Earth's magnetosphere. This session is dedicated to analysis of the ionized environment of planets other than Earth or that of celestial bodies - including exoplanets - both for properties of their own and from a comparative viewpoint. As an example, in-situ and global measurements at Saturn suggest that the kronian magnetosphere is subjected to dynamical reconfigurations and energetic particle injections comparable to those observed at Earth during substorms. In-situ measurements at the Moon reveal a solar wind interaction far more complex than previously thought with a vast amount of ions expelled from the surface gaining access to the lunar wake. First in-situ measurements at Mercury also reveal magnetic field signatures commonly observed at Earth such as Flux Transfer Events or Traveling Compression Regions together with a rich composition of the magnetotail plasma as a result of substantial supply from the planet surface. As for Jupiter, the build-up of the Europa-Jupiter System Mission stimulates a variety of modelling efforts and comparative studies of the interaction between the magnetosphere and jovian satellites. The aim of the proposed session is to gather works based on both in-situ and global measurements and/or numerical simulations in a variety of astrophysical contexts to progress toward a global picture of the dynamics of planetary plasma environments. |