Project description
Solving Mercury’s space weather secrets
Mercury’s interaction with solar wind, termed space weather, presents unique challenges. With its small and fast magnetosphere, its airless surface, large conducting core, and close proximity to the Sun, Mercury serves as an ideal compact-sized magnetospheric solar wind interaction laboratory. The ERC-funded MEOW project addresses these challenges by developing an advanced global plasma simulation model featuring adaptive charged particle kinetic physics. This model, based on high-performance computing, will accurately simulate Mercury’s space weather processes and the interactions within its magnetosphere-exosphere system. The project aims to enhance our understanding of these processes through the BepiColombo mission’s observations, revealing new insights into space weather dynamics.
Objective
"We develop a new type of a global plasma simulation model with adaptive charged particle kinetic physics for the Mercury-solar wind interaction. Mercury’s solar wind interaction, or space weather, is unique in the solar system due to spatially small and temporally fast magnetospheric scales, airless solid body with a large conducting core, a tenuous surface-originating exosphere and the closest distance to the Sun of the planets. These features mean that Mercury is an ideal ""compact-sized magnetospheric solar wind interaction laboratory"" for spacecraft and model studies compared to Earth's much larger magnetosphere. Since Mercury's plasma environment is populated by a unique composition of exospheric heavy ions mixed with the solar wind, the magnetosphere is much smaller than at Earth and under stronger solar wind conditions, studying Mercury reveals new information on space weather processes in general. The main scientific objectives of the BepiColombo (BC) two-orbiter mission en-route to Mercury include the investigation of the structure and dynamics of the Hermean magnetosphere and exosphere. The new model to be developed in this project is based on high-performance computing and an adaptive algorithm for charged particle kinetic effects. This enables efficiently resolving Hermean space weather processes and the coupled, complex solar wind-magnetosphere-exosphere system at detail beyond current global models. The new model is applied in the interpretation of observations by BC with the focus on the role of charged particle effects in the physics of basic space weather processes."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
- natural sciences physical sciences electromagnetism and electronics electromagnetism
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy space exploration
- natural sciences physical sciences plasma physics
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software software applications simulation software
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
00560 Helsinki
Finland
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.