Sample planetary O⁺ trajectories in the steady-state fields from the hybrid simulation. (a) Escaping ions seen from +z; (b) escaping ions seen from −y; (c) precipitating ions seen from +z; (d) precipitating ions seen from −y. All are in the VSE frame. E₀ shows the direction of the convection electric field. The color bar shows the energy of the ions along their trajectories. O⁺ are starting in the dayside up to 1.45R_V from the planet’s center. Please note that the O⁺ starting positions do not follow the distribution of O⁺ in the simulation.