Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (Mar 2024)

Science return of probing magnetospheric systems of ice giants

  • Xin Cao,
  • Xiangning Chu,
  • Hsiang-Wen Hsu,
  • Hao Cao,
  • Weijie Sun,
  • Lucas Liuzzo,
  • Jasper Halekas,
  • Carol Paty,
  • Feng Chu,
  • Omakshi Agiwal,
  • Lauren Blum,
  • Frank Crary,
  • Ian J. Cohen,
  • Peter Delamere,
  • Mark Hofstadter,
  • George Hospodarsky,
  • Cooper John,
  • Peter Kollmann,
  • Elena Kronberg,
  • William Kurth,
  • Laurent Lamy,
  • Laurent Lamy,
  • Dong Lin,
  • Wen Li,
  • Xuanye Ma,
  • David Malaspina,
  • David Malaspina,
  • Michiko Morooka,
  • Tom Nordheim,
  • Frank Postberg,
  • Andrew Poppe,
  • Cartwright Richard,
  • Suranga Ruhunusiri,
  • Krista Soderlund,
  • James O'Donoghue,
  • Ferdinand Plaschke

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2024.1203705
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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The magnetospheric systems of ice giants, as the ideal and the unique template of a typical class of exoplanets, have not been sufficiently studied in the past decade. The complexity of these asymmetric and extremely dynamic magnetospheres provides us a great chance to systematically investigate the general mechanism of driving the magnetospheres of such common exoplanets in the Universe, and the key factors of influencing the global and local magnetospheric structures of this type of planets. In this paper, we discuss the science return of probing magnetospheric systems of ice giants for the future missions, throughout different magnetospheric regions, across from the interaction with upstream solar wind to the downstream region of the magnetotail. We emphasize the importance of detecting the magnetospheric systems of ice giants in the next decades, which enables us to deeply understand the space enviroNMent and habitability of not only the ice giants themselves but also the analogous exoplanets which are widely distributed in the Universe.

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