The Solar Wind Interaction with Pluto: Part 1

Abstract:

On 14 July 2015 the New Horizons (NH) spacecraft flew past Pluto and the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument recorded its remarkable interaction with the impinging solar wind. The interaction is unique in the solar system, in some ways intermediate between the mass loading interactions of comets and ionospheric interactions of massive planets, and in other ways different from both of these more common extremes. Little mass loading was observed until quite close to Pluto and the solar wind was excluded from a region filled with heavy ions from Pluto’s escaping atmosphere that extended well behind it. At the time this abstract was due, only small snippets of SWAP data had been telemetered to Earth, but by the AGU meeting, plasma data from the entire flyby will have been received and initially analyzed. This talk is given on behalf of the SWAP and NH teams.