Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, School of Space Science and Physics, Shandong University at Weihai, Shandong, China.
Nat Commun. 2013;4:1466. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2476.
An understanding of the transport of solar wind plasma into and throughout the terrestrial magnetosphere is crucial to space science and space weather. For non-active periods, there is little agreement on where and how plasma entry into the magnetosphere might occur. Moreover, behaviour in the high-latitude region behind the magnetospheric cusps, for example, the lobes, is poorly understood, partly because of lack of coverage by previous space missions. Here, using Cluster multi-spacecraft data, we report an unexpected discovery of regions of solar wind entry into the Earth's high-latitude magnetosphere tailward of the cusps. From statistical observational facts and simulation analysis we suggest that these regions are most likely produced by magnetic reconnection at the high-latitude magnetopause, although other processes, such as impulsive penetration, may not be ruled out entirely. We find that the degree of entry can be significant for solar wind transport into the magnetosphere during such quiet times.
了解太阳风等离子体进入和贯穿地球磁层的过程对于空间科学和空间天气至关重要。对于非活动期，关于等离子体进入磁层的位置和方式几乎没有共识。此外，磁层顶后面的高纬区域（例如，瓣区）的行为也知之甚少，部分原因是之前的空间任务覆盖不足。在这里，我们使用 Cluster 多航天器数据报告了一个意想不到的发现，即在磁层顶的 cusps 后面的高纬磁尾区域有太阳风进入地球磁层。从统计观测事实和模拟分析中，我们提出这些区域很可能是由高纬磁尾的磁重联产生的，尽管不能完全排除其他过程，如脉冲式穿透。我们发现，在这种安静时期，对于太阳风向磁层的传输，进入的程度可能非常重要。
