Mercury and Earth chorus waves show shared plasma behavior across magnetospheres

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 21, 2026
An international team has shown that natural electromagnetic chorus waves, long known in Earths magnetosphere, also occur in Mercurys much weaker magnetosphere with strikingly similar frequency behavior. The work uses coordinated observations from the BepiColombo Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter Mio during six Mercury flybys between 2021 and 2025, together with decades of data from Earths GEOTAIL