Is Magnetic Reconnection Dominantly Spatially or Temporally Variable: First Results From TRACERS
Abstract The Tandem Reconnection And Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) small explorer mission was designed to: Determine whether magnetopause reconnection is primarily spatially or temporally variable for a range of solar wind conditions . Observations from the Analyzers for Cusp Ions (ACIs) on the two TRACERS spacecrafts are used to make this determination. Tandem cusp encounters from November 2025 through February 2026 are used to distinguish cusp ion structures resulting from spatial variability of magnetopause reconnection from those resulting from temporal variability. Preliminary results indicate that magnetopause reconnection is dominantly spatially variable for all interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) orientations and all solar wind dynamic pressures. Spatial variability dominates by at least a factor of 2 for all solar wind conditions. However, almost all encounters categorized as “spatial” display some temporal variability embedded in the larger spatial variability. More tandem cusp encounters are needed to verify these preliminary results and to complete the other science objectives of the mission.
Authors
- J. W. Bonnell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0675-7907)
- S. M. Petrinec (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0329-7087)
- Scott Randolph Bounds (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4379-6841)
- Y. Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8003-9252)
- R. G. Gomez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7888-668X)
- Iver H. Cairns (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6978-9765)
- Jasper S Halekas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5258-6128)
- Ondřej Santolík (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4891-9273)
- James W. LaBelle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0772-8825)
- M. Øieroset (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3112-1561)
- Karlheinz J. Trattner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5169-109X)
- Roger Roglans (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6222-6566)
- S. A. Fuselier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4101-7901)
- Hao Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6917-8363)
- David Michael Miles (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4714-5966)
- Katherine Amanda Goodrich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4288-5084)
- J. Mukherjee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8362-3008)
- Sarah Kimberly Vines (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7515-3285)
- K. LLera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4460-7360)
- George Blair Hospodarsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9200-9878)
- J. D. Furman
- R. Strangeway
- C. A. Kletzing
Institutions
- Dartmouth College (US)
- West Virginia University (US)
- University of Iowa (US)
- Southwest Research Institute (US)
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Charles University (CZ)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics (CZ)
- Space Sciences Laboratory (US)
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (US)
- Auburn University (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Geophysical Research Space Physics
- Published
- 2026-10-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2026ja035648
- Primary Topic
- Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- NASA Headquarters