Magnetic space whirlpools give Mercury a plasma shower

To the list of scary things in space you can now add giant magnetic vortices. Huge swirls at the edge of Mercury's magnetosphere ? where the planet's magnetic field meets the energetic charged particles of the solar wind ? help shower the planet in solar plasma.

Kelvin-Helmholtz waves occur at the boundary between two fluids, such as two different bodies of air in Earth's atmosphere. They are most visible on Earth in the form of strange wave-like clouds.

KH waves also occur in the magnetospheres of some planets, and NASA's Messenger spacecraft found them around Mercury.

A new study of Messenger's data suggests the waves are larger than thought ? two to three times the size of their terrestrial counterparts ? and occur 10 to 30 times more frequently too.

Messenger also detected solar plasma in Mercury's magnetosphere linked to the KH waves, suggesting the large waves shuttle plasma towards the planet.

"KH waves are more important for mass and energy transfer than we imagined," says Torbj?rn Sundberg at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Journal reference: Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2011ja017268

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

amber rose aubrey o day masters live johan santana viktor bout ncaa hockey role models