Temporal Evolution of Magnetized Planetary Environments during exTreme Events – TEMPETE

The project aims to understand the response of planetary magnetospheres and exospheres to solar storms, and in particular when Coronal Mass ejections (CME) and their associated interplanetary shock interact with these planetary environments. At Earth, these events can cause severe geomagnetic storms, which can affect satellite electronics, GPS and radio communications, but can also induce strong auroral activity and geomagnetic induced currents (GIC). Despite these important effects, studies on time-dependent processes deriving from such encounters are relatively limited for other planetary environments, since most in situ observations are restricted to a single spacecraft, making impossible to untangle spatial and temporal variabilities. Taking advantage of our knowledge on the Earth case, we will characterize the impact of such extreme events on Mars and Mercury in order to determine their role in atmospheric/surface erosion. . The main scientific goals of our projects are:
a- Characterization of the boundaries’ and magnetosphere’s response to different drivers and extreme events,
b- Assessment of the impacts of extreme events on the upper atmosphere/exosphere (Mars and Mercury),
c- Determination of the reconfiguration time scales of weakly-magnetized objects (Mars) as compared to small or large scale magnetosphere (Mercury, Earth respectively).
Joint simulation and data analysis investigations will address these questions. Two global coupled simulation models of the upper atmosphere (EGM model) and ionized environment (LatHyS model) will be used and extended in order to describe and track the temporal evolution of the interaction of a solar storm with planetary environments (Earth, Mars, Mercury).
Recent spacecrafts have explored (are still exploring or will explore) Mars, Mercury and Earth and lead to a large set of in situ measurements that we will analyze with a comparative planetology approach, in combination with numerical simulations, in order to understand how these extreme events, and their associated interplanetary shocks, can affect celestial bodies with different properties. .
New tools will be develop for exospheric and magnetospheric models, and the post-treatment/visualization of their results, in order to include original aspects such as the monitoring of the temporal evolution of such environments, the characterization of (interplanetary) shock- (planetary) bow shock interactions,…