Event Details

Space & Planetary Physics Seminar Speaker: Michaela Mooney - University of Leicester, UK

Abstract

The Sun may seem to be a quiet and distant neighbour but, the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) originating from the Sun play a critical role in shaping our near-Earth space environment. A key aspect of the interaction between the IMF and Earth's magnetosphere is the orientation of the IMF Bz component. The structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere are significantly different during intervals of northward IMF (+Bz) compared to when the IMF is southward (-Bz). Under northward IMF, reconnection can occur at high latitudes in both hemispheres simultaneously which can close significant amounts of open flux, resulting in an almost entirely closed magnetosphere which has been linked with characteristic auroral signatures, including horse-collar auroras and cusp-aligned arcs. This seminar will provide a brief overview of the magnetospheric structure and dynamics under northward IMF (likely raising more questions than we currently have answers to!) and will focus on recent analysis of the structure of the distant magnetotail under northward IMF.