HOT STUFF These images of Mercury were taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft during its mid-January flyby. The data reveal signs of volcanic activity on the planet, provide additional evidence that Mercury's magnetic field was generated by its core and offer the first look
at the planet's surface composition.
NASA, JHUAPL, Carnegie Institution
Mercury, the solar system’s forgotten planet, is finally
getting its place in the sun.
An analysis of data collected during the January flyby of
the spacecraft MESSENGER — which will begin a year-long orbit of Mercury in
2011 — has revealed the origin of the planet’s magnetic field, discovered
evidence of early volcanic activity and provided a first look at the planet’s
surface composition.
Researchers describe their findings in the July 4 Science.
Although Mercury bears a superficial resemblance to Earth’s
pockmarked moon — both bodies have been pummeled by rocky debris — volcanism
appears to be widespread on the planet, notes Mark Robinson of Arizona State
University in Tempe. For instance, the ancient Caloris
Basin, big enough to hold Arizona, Nevada and California, is filled with smooth
plains that appear to have been created by the belching of vast amounts of
lava.
In addition, Jim Head of Brown
University in Providence, R.I.,
and his collaborators found evidence of volcanic vents along the edges of
Caloris. The data “open up a whole new realm” about how volcanic activity may
have shaped the planet, he says.
LAVA WAS HEREThe Caloris basin on Mercury (pictured), and other surface features of the planet, are revealed in new detail thanks to images from the MESSENGER craft. The new data suggest the once-overlooked planet has a magnetic field likely generated internally, and possibly has a volcanic history. AAAS/Science
The only previous mission to examine Mercury close-up —
Mariner 10 in the mid-1970s — found no evidence of volcanism. MESSENGER, which
came within 200 kilometers of the planet in January and imaged about half of
the region not seen by Mariner 10, can see much finer detail.
For 30 minutes of the two-day flyby, MESSENGER recorded the
first observations of ionized particles in Mercury’s exosphere, the planet’s
tenuous atmosphere. The craft also examined Mercury’s magnetosphere, the vast
magnetic bubble surrounding both the planet and exosphere. The wind of charged
particles from the sun, as well as micrometeoroids that strike Mercury, lift
particles from the surface and inject them into the exosphere and
magnetosphere.
The abundances of silicon, sodium and sulfur in the
magnetosphere are too high and their ionization states, or charges, too low to
be solar wind particles, notes Thomas Zurbuchen of the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The particles indeed came from
Mercury’s surface, and the magnetosphere observations therefore provide the
first view of the surface composition of the planet, his team reports.
Mercury is riddled with faults, caused by the contraction of
the planet as its giant core, which accounts for 60 percent of the planet’s
mass, slowly cooled, notes MESSENGER lead investigator Sean Solomon of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington (D.C.).
The flyby data indicate that the contraction was at least
one-third greater than scientists had estimated. Because Earth’s core occupies
much less of the planet’s total mass and volume, its contraction doesn’t sculpt
Earth’s surface nearly as much.
On Mercury, huge cliffs mark the tops of crustal faults.
“This is the one planet in the solar system where we are seeing the effect of
internal cooling on the surface,” Solomon says.
The cooling of the inner core, which added heat to outlying
regions, also stirred up material in Mercury’s outer core, fueling the dynamo
that generated the planet’s magnetic field, Solomon says. The MESSENGER data
adds to evidence that the magnetic field is produced internally and is not a
vestige of a field produced early in the planet’s history.
“The determination that the field is of internal origin is
significant and an important part of understanding Mercury's history and
planets and dynamos in general,” comments David Stevenson of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
In preparation for its year-long sojourn in 2011, MESSENGER
— which stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging
— will fly past Mercury two more times, once this October and once in September
2009. These two flybys will offer views of the side of the planet not yet
viewed by MESSENGER.
Found in: Atom & Cosmos
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