HR: 1330h
AN: SM23B-08    [Abstracts]
TI: Stretching and Collapse of the Nightside Magnetosphere at 9Re
AU: * Ge, Y
EM: ysge@ucla.edu
AF: University of California Los Angeles, Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567 United States
AU: Russell, C T
EM: ctrussell@igpp.ucla.edu
AF: University of California Los Angeles, Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567 United States
AB: During the fall of 2001, 2002 and 2003, the apsides of Polar spacecraft precessed through the equatorial plane. The plasma sheet at 9 Re was probed near local midnight. Sometimes the magnetic field magnitude in this region was very low, below 5 nT. However, no reconnection was observed at this distance in our investigation. But when the field was so weak, we saw a variety of dynamic signatures associated with magnetic reconnection including stretching and collapse of magnetic field. In this study, we present an event during which the magnetic field at about 9 Re was strongly and rapidly stretched and then suddenly collapsed. During the collapse of magnetic field strength, there was an immediate dipolarization which suggests that the onset of magnetic reconnection occurred very near this region.
DE: 2740 Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics
DE: 2744 Magnetotail
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly