mesosonic
adjEtymology From meso- + sonic.
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Aerospace, Business, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences Describing motion through a two-phase medium, usually electrons and heavy ions, at a speed between the speeds of sound in the two components.
- In space plasmas, spacecraft usually encounter mesosonic flows, i.e. flows which are supersonic with respect to the ion thermal speed, but subsonic with respect to the electron thermal speed.2007, Anders I. Eriksson et al., “Spacecraft wakes in the solar wind”, in Proceedings of the 10th Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference, June 18-21, 2007: