The Interaction of the Solar Wind With Venus

While the Venus ionosphere, rather than magnetosphere as on the earth, deflects the solar wind flow, this deflection is accomplished with the deformation of a bow shock which heats and compresses the solar wind flow, and is closer to the planet and weaker than would be expected for an ideal gas dynamic interaction with a perfectly reflecting obstacle. The ionized magnetosheath flow can interact directly with the neutral atmosphere through charge exchange, which removes momentum from the flow, and photoionization; both processes adding mass to the solar wind because the high altitude neutral atmosphere is mostly composed of oxygen rather than hydrogen. The magnetotail of Venus also differs from that of the earth in that the mass loading of the magnetosheath flow slows the transport of magnetic flux tubes past the planet, while the ends of the tubes continue to travel rapidly in the solar wind, so that the planet accretes interplanetary magnetic flux.