{
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    "results": [
        {
            "id": 14123,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14123/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2022-03-24T14:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "What Mercury’s Unusual Orbit Reveals About the Sun",
            "description": "Mercury is special. As the closest planet to the Sun, it occupies a region where the Sun’s influence is changing dramatically. The Sun’s magnetic field, which dominates space close to the Sun, is rapidly waning. And Mercury’s orbit – more elliptical or “oval-shaped” than any other planet – allows it to experience a wider range of solar magnetic field conditions than any other planet. As a result, Mercury provides a unique opportunity to study how the Sun’s influence on a planet varies with distance.In a new study published in Nature Communications, Goddard scientists Norberto Romanelli and Gina DiBraccio used data from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft to study the Sun’s changing interaction with Mercury. As Mercury moves through the solar wind, the steady stream of particles escaping the Sun, some of them strike Mercury’s magnetosphere and bounce back towards the Sun. These rebounding solar wind particles generate low-frequency waves that reverberate through space, traveling “upstream” in the solar wind towards the Sun. Romanelli and DiBraccio observed these waves emanating from Mercury and discovered that the rate of wave production varied throughout Mercury’s orbit. As Mercury moved farther from the Sun it generated more waves; as it got closer, the rate of wave production dropped. The results provide key evidence for a theory that these waves are affected, in part, by the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field, which grows weaker with distance. || ",
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        },
        {
            "id": 4954,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4954/",
            "result_type": "Visualization",
            "release_date": "2021-11-11T00:00:00-05:00",
            "title": "Mercury Makes Waves Cruising through the Solar Wind",
            "description": "Mercury orbits the Sun in a unique regime. The solar wind is still fresh from the Sun, and the Sun’s magnetic field strength (which drops with the square of distance) is rapidly waning. Furthermore, Mercury’s highly elliptical orbit means the planet passes through a wider range of distances from the Sun than any other planet. As a result, Mercury provides a unique opportunity to study how the Sun’s influence on a planet varies with distance.These animations provide a conceptual schematic of the results of one such investigation as described in “Occurrence rate of ultra-low frequency waves in the foreshock of Mercury increases with heliocentric distance.” Using data from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, the authors has detected Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves rebounding from Mercury’s foreshock, the turbulent area where solar wind particles collide with Mercury’s magnetosphere. These waves are caused by solar wind protons – the steady stream of particles escaping the Sun –collide with and reflect off of this foreshock against the stream of the solar wind. The authors discovered that the ULF wave production rate varied throughout Mercury’s orbit. MESSENGER detected more ULF waves as Mercury moved farther from the Sun in its orbit, and fewer as it approached the Sun. The results support an existing theory that claimed that ULF waves are affected in part by the strength of the solar magnetic field, which is at its weakest when Mercury is farthest from the Sun. || ",
            "hits": 131
        }
    ]
}