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The position of the Sun would be far to the left in this image. The magnetopause is the abrupt boundary between a magnetosphere and the surrounding plasma. For planetary science, the magnetopause is the boundary between the planet's magnetic field and the solar wind. The location of the magnetopause is determined by the balance between the ...
The magnetopause exists at a distance of several hundred kilometers above Earth's surface. Earth's magnetopause has been compared to a sieve because it allows solar wind particles to enter. Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities occur when large swirls of plasma travel along the edge of the magnetosphere at a different velocity from the magnetosphere ...
The distance from the magnetopause to the center of the planet is from 45 to 100 R J (where R J =71,492 km is the radius of Jupiter) at the subsolar point—the unfixed point on the surface at which the Sun would appear directly overhead to an observer. [6]
On average, the plasma density decreases with the square of the distance from the Sun, [46]: Sect. 2.4 while the velocity decreases and flattens out at 1 AU. [46]: Fig. 5 Fig. 5 Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 reported plasma density n between 0.001 and 0.005 particles/cm 3 at distances of 80 to 120 AU, increasing rapidly beyond 120 AU at heliopause to ...
One particularly distant body is 90377 Sedna, which was discovered in November 2003.It has an extremely eccentric orbit that takes it to an aphelion of 937 AU. [2] It takes over 10,000 years to orbit, and during the next 50 years it will slowly move closer to the Sun as it comes to perihelion at a distance of 76 AU from the Sun. [3] Sedna is the largest known sednoid, a class of objects that ...
2) Magnetosheath. 3) Magnetopause. 4) Magnetosphere. 5) Northern tail lobe. 6) Southern tail lobe. 7) Plasmasphere. Earth's magnetic field, predominantly dipolar at its surface, is distorted further out by the solar wind. This is a stream of charged particles leaving the Sun's corona and accelerating to a speed of 200 to 1000 kilometres per second.
The magnetopause distance from the planet's center at the subsolar point [note 1] varies widely from 16 to 27 R s (R s =60,330 km is the equatorial radius of Saturn). [14] [15] The magnetopause's position depends on the pressure exerted by the solar wind, which in turn depends on solar activity.
The Rosetta spacecraft followed comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from far out in the solar system, at a heliocentric distance of 3.6 AU, in toward perihelion at 1.24 AU, and back out again. This allowed Rosetta to observe the bow shock as it formed when the outgassing increased during the comet's journey toward the Sun.