Mercury's magnetospheric substorm and storm

Magnetospheric substorms and magnetic storms are explosive energy storage and release processes occurring during the interactions between the solar wind and planetary magnetospheres. They are accompanied by complex plasma dynamics processes and they have strong impacts on the magnetosphere as well as on the planet. They are the most well-known space weathering events in Earth's magnetosphere. Their occurrences not only trigger brilliant and colorful auroras through energetic particle precipitation, but also can influence our daily life since intense energetic particles and strong electromagnetic field disturbances are generated. Energetic particles in high latitude ionosphere and magnetosphere are a threat to the satellites in orbit. The strong electromagnetic field disturbances on the high latitude magnetosphere induced by the field-aligned currents can influence and even destroy power and telecommunication infrastructure on the ground. While substorms and magnetic storms on Earth's magnetosphere have been described and studied for nearly a century, the substorms and magnetic storms on other planets have only just started in this century. Among them, Mercury and Earth are the most similar in the aspect of the magnetosphere (especially in structure and driving mode), and the study about magnetospheric substorms and magnetic storms can help us better understand the nature of magnetospheric substorms and magnetic storms, and verify or disprove the theory and explanations derived from the Earth's study. With the launch of MESSENGER and its in-orbit exploration, the long-term in-situ observations of magnetic field and plasma have led to a significant development of the in-depth investigation of Mercury's magnetosphere. In this paper, we review the progress of research on magnetospheric substorms and magnetic storms on Mercury in the last decade.