Walker-Ogino MHD Simulations - Flow

Pressure coutours and flow vectors in Jupiter's equatorial plane from a global magnetohydrodynamic simulation of Jupiter's magnetosphere. In this theoretical model the solar wind enters from the left and interacts with Jupiter's rapidly rotating magnetosphere. The gold arrows show the velocity of the flowing plasmas while the background gives the thermal pressure of the plasma as color coding. The pressure scale is on the left. The arrows near Jupiter show the flow corotating about the planet. The flow in the magnetotail is away from Jupiter toward the right edge simulation area. This results for the magnetic reconnectiondescribed in the magnetic field line plot. The distance units are in jovian radii ~70,000 km).