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.
On the Mesoscale Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections at Mercury's Orbit: BepiColombo and Parker Solar Probe Observations
- Creators
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Palmerio, Erika
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Carcaboso, Fernando
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Khoo, Leng Ying
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Salman, Tarik M.
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Sánchez-Cano, Beatriz
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Lynch, Benjamin J.
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Rivera, Yeimy J.
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Pal, Sanchita
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Nieves-Chinchilla, Teresa
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Weiss, Andreas J.
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Lario, David
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Mieth, Johannes Z. D.
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Heyner, Daniel
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Stevens, Michael L.
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Romeo, Orlando M.
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Zhukov, Andrei N.
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Rodriguez, Luciano
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Lee, Christina O.
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Cohen, Christina M. S.
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Rodríguez-García, Laura
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Whittlesey, Phyllis L.
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Dresing, Nina
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Oleynik, Philipp
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Jebaraj, Immanuel C.
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Fischer, David
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Schmid, Daniel
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Richter, Ingo
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Auster, Hans-Ulrich
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Fraschetti, Federico
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Mierla, Marilena
Abstract
Copyright and License
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
E.P. acknowledges support from NASA's Parker Solar Probe Guest Investigators (PSP-GI; No. 80NSSC22K0349), Heliophysics Theory, Modeling, and Simulations (HTMS; No. 80NSSC20K1274), and Living With a Star Strategic Capabilities (LWS-SC; No. 80NSSC22K0893) programs, as well as Parker Solar Probe WISPR contract No. NNG11EK11I to NRL (under subcontract No. N00173-19-C-2003 to PSI). F.C., S.P., and A.J.W. acknowledge the financial support by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by USRA through a contract with NASA. B.S.-C. acknowledges support from the UK-STFC Ernest Rutherford fellowship ST/V004115/1 and the BepiColombo guest investigator grant ST/Y000439/1. B.J.L. acknowledges support from NASA HSR No. 80NSSC20K1448 and HGI No. 80NSSC21K0731. B.J.L. and C.O.L. acknowledge NASA LWS grant No. 80NSSC21K1325. D.L. acknowledges support from NASA Living With a Star (LWS) program NNH19ZDA001N-LWS. A.N.Z., L.R., and M.M. thank the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) for the provision of financial support in the framework of the PRODEX Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) under contract Nos. 4000112292, 4000134088, 4000134474, and 4000136424. L.R.-G. acknowledges the financial support by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades FEDER/MCIU/AEI Projects ESP2017-88436-R and PID2019-104863RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. L.R.-G. and N.D. acknowledge support by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101004159 (SERPENTINE). N.D. also acknowledges funding from the Academy of Finland (SHOCKSEE, grant No. 346902).
BepiColombo is an ESA–JAXA mission, where MPO has been built and is operated by ESA.
Parker Solar Probe was designed, built, and is now operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory as part of NASA's LWS program (contract No. NNN06AA01C). Support from the LWS management and technical team has played a critical role in the success of the Parker Solar Probe mission.
Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. The EUI instrument was built by CSL, IAS, MPS, MSSL/UCL, PMOD/WRC, ROB, and LCF/IO with funding from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Centre National dEtudes Spatiales (CNES); the UK Space Agency (UKSA); the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) through the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR); and the Swiss Space Office (SSO).
Facilities
Bepi (MPO-MAG); - GOES (SUVI); Parker (FIELDS, SWEAP, WISPR); SOHO (LASCO); SolO (EUI); STEREO (SECCHI)
Software References
AstroPy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2022); SolarSoft (Freeland & Handy 1998); SunPy (SunPy Community et al. 2020)
Additional Information
Parker Solar Probe: Insights into the Physics of the Near-Solar Environment
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1538-4357
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC22K0349
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC20K1274
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC22K0893
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNG11EK11I
- United States Naval Research Laboratory
- N00173-19-C-2003
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
- ST/V004115/1
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
- ST/Y000439/1
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC20K1448
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC21K0731
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC21K1325
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNH19ZDA001N-LWS
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
- 4000112292
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
- 4000134088
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
- 4000134474
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
- 4000136424
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
- ESP2017-88436-R
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
- PID2019-104863RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033
- European Research Council
- 101004159
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNN06AA01C
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales
- United Kingdom Space Agency
- Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)
- State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation
- Swiss Space Office
- Research Council of Finland
- 346902
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory