WAS BEPICOLOMBO'S SECOND SWINGBY THE FIRST EVER PASSAGE THROUGH THE SOUTHERN PLASMA RING? - WILLI EXNER

Although the first three Mercury swingbys of BepiColombo had very similar trajectory configurations, plasma and magnetic field observations of the second swingby revealed a peculiar signature that had never been seen before.
Just a few minutes before the outbound passage of the dayside magnetopause, the plasma density and temperature increased and magnetic field decreased.
The previous and following swingbys did no show such features.
To understand how these localized observations play into the context of the global magnetosphere, we employ the 3D hybrid model AIKEF that models the global magnetosphere and its interaction with the upstream solar wind. We compare our model results for plasma density, temperature and magnetic field with the maltitude of BepiColombo's instruments and find significant agreement.
Our 3D results reveal that BepiColombo passed through Mercury's plasma ring  in the southern dayside region, just before crossing through the magnetopause. We find that no other spacecraft had ever traversed this particular region, and so BepiColombo's second flyby is going to be an important subject to investigate in order to understand the plasma ring inside Mercury's magnetosphere.