The boundary of Earth's magnetic field, the magnetopause, deflects and reacts to the solar wind - the energetic particles emanating from the Sun. We find that certain types of solar wind favour the occurrence of deviations between the magnetopause locations observed by spacecraft and those predicted by models. In addition, the turbulent region in front of the magnetopause, the foreshock, has a large influence on the location of the magnetopause and thus on the accuracy of the model predictions.

In our study, we looked at the boundary between the Earth's magnetic field and the interplanetary magnetic field emitted by the Sun, called the magnetopause. While other studies focus on the magnetopause motion near Earth's Equator, we have studied it in polar regions. The motion of the magnetopause is faster towards the Earth than towards the Sun. We also found that the occurrence of unusual magnetopause locations is due to similar solar influences in the equatorial and polar regions.

This paper presents observations of FTE-type flux ropes on the dayside during BepiColombo's Earth flyby. FTE-type flux ropes are a well-known feature of magnetic reconnection on the magnetopause, and they can be used to constrain the location of reconnection X-lines. Our study suggests that the magnetopause X-line passed BepiColombo from the north as it traversed the magnetopause. Moreover, our results also strongly support coalescence creating larger flux ropes by combining smaller ones.

On 15 October 2020, BepiColombo used Venus as a gravity assist to change its orbit to reach Mercury in late 2021. During this passage of Venus, the spacecraft entered into Venus's magnetotail at a distance of 70 Venus radii from the planet. We have studied the magnetic field and plasma data and find that Venus's magnetotail is highly active. This is caused by strong activity in the solar wind, where just before the flyby a coronal mass ejection interacted with the magnetophere of Venus.

In this work we present the first analytical magnetosheath plasma flow model for the space environment around Mercury. The proposed model is relatively simple to implement and provides the possibility to trace the flow lines inside the Hermean magnetosheath. It can help to determine the the local plasma conditions of a spacecraft in the magnetosheath exclusively on the basis of the upstream solar wind parameters.