Imperial College London
Alternate

ProfessorMicheleDougherty

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Physics

Head of Department of Physics, Professor of Space Physics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7770m.dougherty Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Ms Lida Mnatsakanian +44 (0)20 7594 7503

 
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Location

 

Blackett 900aBlackett LaboratorySouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Pilkington:2015:10.1002/2015GL065477,
author = {Pilkington, NM and Achilleos, N and Arridge, CS and Guio, P and Masters, A and Ray, LC and Sergis, N and Thomsen, MF and Coates, AJ and Dougherty, MK},
doi = {10.1002/2015GL065477},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
pages = {6890--6898},
title = {Asymmetries observed in Saturn's magnetopause geometry},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065477},
volume = {42},
year = {2015}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - For over 10 years, the Cassini spacecraft has patrolled Saturn's magnetosphere and observed its magnetopause boundary over a wide range of prevailing solar wind and interior plasma conditions. We now have data that enable us to resolve a significant dawn-dusk asymmetry and find that the magnetosphere extends farther from the planet on the dawnside of the planet by 7 ± 1%. In addition, an opposing dawn-dusk asymmetry in the suprathermal plasma pressure adjacent to the magnetopause has been observed. This probably acts to reduce the size asymmetry and may explain the discrepancy between the degree of asymmetry found here and a similar asymmetry found by Kivelson and Jia (2014) using MHD simulations. Finally, these observations sample a wide range of season, allowing the “intrinsic” polar flattening (14 ± 1%) caused by the magnetodisc to be separated from the seasonally induced north-south asymmetry in the magnetopause shape found theoretically (5 ± 1% when the planet's magnetic dipole is tilted away from the Sun by 10–17°).
AU  - Pilkington,NM
AU  - Achilleos,N
AU  - Arridge,CS
AU  - Guio,P
AU  - Masters,A
AU  - Ray,LC
AU  - Sergis,N
AU  - Thomsen,MF
AU  - Coates,AJ
AU  - Dougherty,MK
DO  - 10.1002/2015GL065477
EP  - 6898
PY  - 2015///
SN  - 1944-8007
SP  - 6890
TI  - Asymmetries observed in Saturn's magnetopause geometry
T2  - Geophysical Research Letters
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065477
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/38574
VL  - 42
ER  -
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