The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
On the Mesoscale Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections at Mercury’s Orbit: BepiColombo and Parker Solar Probe Observations
- Erika Palmerio,
- Fernando Carcaboso,
- Leng Ying Khoo,
- Tarik M. Salman,
- Beatriz Sánchez-Cano,
- Benjamin J. Lynch,
- Yeimy J. Rivera,
- Sanchita Pal,
- Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla,
- Andreas J. Weiss,
- David Lario,
- Johannes Z. D. Mieth,
- Daniel Heyner,
- Michael L. Stevens,
- Orlando M. Romeo,
- Andrei N. Zhukov,
- Luciano Rodriguez,
- Christina O. Lee,
- Christina M. S. Cohen,
- Laura Rodríguez-García,
- Phyllis L. Whittlesey,
- Nina Dresing,
- Philipp Oleynik,
- Immanuel C. Jebaraj,
- David Fischer,
- Daniel Schmid,
- Ingo Richter,
- Hans-Ulrich Auster,
- Federico Fraschetti,
- Marilena Mierla
Affiliations
- Erika Palmerio
- ORCiD
- Predictive Science Inc. , San Diego, CA 92121, USA ; [email protected]
- Fernando Carcaboso
- ORCiD
- Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Leng Ying Khoo
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Tarik M. Salman
- ORCiD
- Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, George Mason University , Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
- Beatriz Sánchez-Cano
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester , LE1 7RH Leicester, UK
- Benjamin J. Lynch
- ORCiD
- Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California , Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
- Yeimy J. Rivera
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Sanchita Pal
- ORCiD
- Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla
- ORCiD
- Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Andreas J. Weiss
- ORCiD
- Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- David Lario
- ORCiD
- Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Johannes Z. D. Mieth
- ORCiD
- Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik , TU Braunschweig, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany
- Daniel Heyner
- ORCiD
- Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik , TU Braunschweig, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany
- Michael L. Stevens
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Orlando M. Romeo
- ORCiD
- Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Andrei N. Zhukov
- ORCiD
- Solar–Terrestrial Centre of Excellence—SIDC , Royal Observatory of Belgium, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium; Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University , 119991 Moscow, Russia
- Luciano Rodriguez
- ORCiD
- Solar–Terrestrial Centre of Excellence—SIDC , Royal Observatory of Belgium, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium
- Christina O. Lee
- ORCiD
- Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Christina M. S. Cohen
- ORCiD
- California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Laura Rodríguez-García
- ORCiD
- European Space Astronomy Centre , European Space Agency, E-28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain; Universidad de Alcalá , Space Research Group (SRG-UAH), E-28801 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
- Phyllis L. Whittlesey
- ORCiD
- Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Nina Dresing
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku , FI-20014 Turku, Finland
- Philipp Oleynik
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku , FI-20014 Turku, Finland
- Immanuel C. Jebaraj
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku , FI-20014 Turku, Finland
- David Fischer
- ORCiD
- Space Research Institute , Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-8042 Graz, Austria
- Daniel Schmid
- ORCiD
- Space Research Institute , Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-8042 Graz, Austria
- Ingo Richter
- ORCiD
- Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik , TU Braunschweig, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany
- Hans-Ulrich Auster
- ORCiD
- Institut für Geophysik und extraterrestrische Physik , TU Braunschweig, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany
- Federico Fraschetti
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Planetary Sciences , Lunar and Planetary Lab, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
- Marilena Mierla
- ORCiD
- Solar–Terrestrial Centre of Excellence—SIDC , Royal Observatory of Belgium, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium; Institute of Geodynamics of the Romanian Academy , 020032 Bucharest-37, Romania
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad1ab4
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 963,
no. 2
p. 108
Abstract
On 2022 February 15, an impressive filament eruption was observed off the solar eastern limb from three remote-sensing viewpoints, namely, Earth, STEREO-A, and Solar Orbiter. In addition to representing the most-distant observed filament at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths—captured by Solar Orbiter's field of view extending to above 6 R _⊙ —this event was also associated with the release of a fast (∼2200 km s ^−1 ) coronal mass ejection (CME) that was directed toward BepiColombo and Parker Solar Probe. These two probes were separated by 2° in latitude, 4° in longitude, and 0.03 au in radial distance around the time of the CME-driven shock arrival in situ. The relative proximity of the two probes to each other and the Sun (∼0.35 au) allows us to study the mesoscale structure of CMEs at Mercury's orbit for the first time. We analyze similarities and differences in the main CME-related structures measured at the two locations, namely, the interplanetary shock, the sheath region, and the magnetic ejecta. We find that, despite the separation between the two spacecraft being well within the typical uncertainties associated with determination of CME geometric parameters from remote-sensing observations, the two sets of in situ measurements display some profound differences that make understanding the overall 3D CME structure particularly challenging. Finally, we discuss our findings within the context of space weather at Mercury's distance and in terms of the need to investigate solar transients via spacecraft constellations with small separations, which has been gaining significant attention during recent years.
Keywords
- Solar filament eruptions
- Solar coronal mass ejections
- Interplanetary magnetic fields
- Interplanetary shocks
