Mercury's magnetopause and bow shock from MESSENGER Magnetometer observations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract We have established the average shape and location of Mercury's magnetopause and bow shock from orbital observations by the MESSENGER Magnetometer. We fit empirical models to midpoints of boundary crossings and probability density maps of the magnetopause and bow shock positions. The magnetopause was fit by a surface for which the position R from the planetary dipole varies as [1 + cos( θ )] − α , where θ is the angle between R and the dipole‐Sun line, the subsolar standoff distance R ss is 1.45 R M (where R M is Mercury's radius), and the flaring parameter α = 0.5. The average magnetopause shape and location were determined under a mean solar wind ram pressure P Ram of 14.3 nPa. The best fit bow shock shape established under an average Alfvén Mach number ( M A ) of 6.6 is described by a hyperboloid having R ss = 1.96 R M and an eccentricity of 1.02. These boundaries move as P Ram and M A vary, but their shapes remain unchanged. The magnetopause R ss varies from 1.55 to 1.35 R M for P Ram in the range of 8.8–21.6 nPa. The bow shock R ss varies from 2.29 to 1.89 R M for M A in the range of 4.12–11.8. The boundaries are well approximated by figures of revolution. Additional quantifiable effects of the interplanetary magnetic field are masked by the large dynamic variability of these boundaries. The magnetotail surface is nearly cylindrical, with a radius of ~2.7 R M at a distance of 3 R M downstream of Mercury. By comparison, Earth's magnetotail flaring continues until a downstream distance of ~10 R ss .
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".