Cuts through the simulation of the MESSENGER M2 flyby. (a) XZ cut at Y = 0 (noon-midnight meridian) with color contours of plasma thermal pressure. The thick magenta line shows the modeled magnetopause boundary identified based on the current density, while the white dotted line represents the databased empirical magnetopause model of Winslow et al. (2013). (b) YZ cut at X = 0 (terminator plane) with color contours of the x component of the flow velocity (V_x). The horizontal line at Z = 1.3 R_M is color coded by the y component of the convectional electric field (E_y), from which the cross polar cap potential is calculated (from Jia et al., 2015).