Abstract | With the 2nd Venus flyby by BepiColombo on August 10th 2021, we had the rare opportunity to make a complete tour of the Venusian magnetosheath: one of the few gas-dynamic dominated solar wind-object interaction regions in the Solar System. The flyby passed through the full magnetosheath, from the nightside flank towards the stagnation region near the subsolar point and out through a quasi-perpendicular bow shock. The flyby was made during the extremely rare opportunity when Solar Orbiter was located upstream, close to Venus, due to its Venus flyby the day before. Solar Orbiter could therefore provide complementary solar wind measurements, which showed very stable conditions during the BepiColombo flyby. The rare spacecraft configuration and the stable conditions provided new intel on the stagnation point at near solar minimum conditions, as measured by seven plasma and magnetic field instruments on BepiColombo. The measurements show a stagnation region expanded to large distances from Venus, which confirms that Venus is fully capable of withstanding the solar wind even at near solar minimum conditions.
Co-authors:
S. Aizawa1, N. André1, S. Barabash2, Y. Saito3, Y. Harada4, D. Heyner5, S. Orsini6, A. Fedorov1, C. Mazelle1, Y. Futaana2, L.Z. Hadid7, M. Volwerk8, G. Collinson9, B. Sanchez-Cano10, A. Barthe1, E. Penou1, S. Yokota11, V. Génot1, J.A. Sauvaud1, D. Delcourt7, M. Fraenz12, R. Modolo13, A. Milillo6, H.-U. Auster5, I. Richter5, J.Z.D. Mieth5, P. Louarn1, C.J. Owen14, T.S. Horbury15, K. Asamura3, S. Matsuda16, H. Nilsson2 M. Wieser2, T. Alberti6, A. Varsani8, V. Mangano6, A. Mura6, H. Lichtenegger8, G. Laky8, H. Jeszenszky8, K. Masunaga3, C. Signoles1, M. Rojo1, G. Murakami3
1IRAP, CNRS-UPS-CNES, Toulouse, France
2Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden
3ISAS, JAXA, Japan
4Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
5Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
6Institute of Space Astrophysics and Planetology, INAF, Rome, Italy
7LPP, CNRS, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Saclay, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
8Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria
9NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
10School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
11Department of Earth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Japan
12Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany
13LATMOS, IPSL, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Université Paris-Saclay, Université Pierre Marie Curie, CNRS, Guyancourt, France
14MSSL, University College London, Holmbury St. Mary, UK
15Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK
16Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan |
