Earth's Distant Magnetotail and Vicinity: current understanding and new insights from ESCAPADE.
Earth's Distant Magnetotail and Vicinity: current understanding and new insights from ESCAPADE.
Session ID#: 281070
Session Description:
The distant magnetotail ($>60 R_E$) and vicinity remains one of the least explored regions of Earth’s magnetosphere. Research using Wind, STEREO, ARTEMIS, and Geotail have established our foundational understanding of tail structure, plasmoid evolution, and the distant reconnection line. However, dedicated observations in this region have been sparse for nearly thirty years. This session highlights new frontiers in distant tail research, reviewing prior understanding and inviting results from the ESCAPADE twin spacecraft’s passages through the magnetotail at 320 R_E and 80 R_E in March and June 2026, respectively. These encounters, and multipoint analysis with L1 assets and THEMIS/ARTEMIS, provide a unique opportunity to sample the tail environment before the mission’s cruise to Mars. We welcome abstracts utilizing any data from ESCAPADE's near-Earth loiter phase (Feb-Oct 2026), legacy missions, or global simulations to address any aspect of heliophysics in this largely unexplored environment.
Co-Sponsor(s):
- P - Planetary Sciences
- SH - SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics
Index Terms:
5443 Magnetospheres [PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS]
7835 Magnetic reconnection [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]
7846 Plasma energization [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]
7984 Space radiation environment [SPACE WEATHER]
Primary Convener: Robert J Lillis, University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States
Conveners: Dr. Takuya Hara, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, Yusuke Ebihara, Kyoto University, Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto, Japan and Marit Oieroset, Univ California, Berkeley, United States
See more of: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics