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Surface Conditions and "Atmosphere" (Exosphere) : Sean C. Solomon

1) The surface temperature of Mercury ranges greatly from 100K to 700K depending on location, with the hottest temperatures near the equator at perihelion and the coldest near the poles. 2) Radar observations have detected large patches of high radar reflection near Mercury's poles, which are believed to contain vast quantities of water ice on the order of 10^14-10^15 kg. 3) Mercury has an extremely thin exosphere containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and other elements that are continuously lost and replenished from various sources like the solar wind and radioactive decay within Mercury's crust.

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Aminath Meesan
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41 views2 pages

Surface Conditions and "Atmosphere" (Exosphere) : Sean C. Solomon

1) The surface temperature of Mercury ranges greatly from 100K to 700K depending on location, with the hottest temperatures near the equator at perihelion and the coldest near the poles. 2) Radar observations have detected large patches of high radar reflection near Mercury's poles, which are believed to contain vast quantities of water ice on the order of 10^14-10^15 kg. 3) Mercury has an extremely thin exosphere containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and other elements that are continuously lost and replenished from various sources like the solar wind and radioactive decay within Mercury's crust.

Uploaded by

Aminath Meesan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Surface conditions and "atmosphere" (exosphere)

[50]

The surface temperature of Mercury ranges from 100 K to 700 K at the most extreme places 0N, 0 or [12] 180W. It never rises above 180 K at the poles, due to the absence of an atmosphere and a steep temperature gradient between the equator and the poles. The subsolar point reaches about 700 K [51] during perihelion (0 or 180W), but only 550 K at aphelion (90 or 270W). On the dark side of the [12][52] planet, temperatures average 110 K. The intensity of sunlight on Mercury's surface ranges between 2 [53] 4.59 and 10.61 times thesolar constant (1,370 Wm ). Although the daylight temperature at the surface of Mercury is generally extremely high, observations strongly suggest that ice (frozen water) exists on Mercury. The floors of deep craters at the poles are never exposed to direct sunlight, and temperatures there remain below 102 K; far lower than the global [54] average. Water ice strongly reflects radar, and observations by the 70 m Goldstone telescope and the VLA in the early 1990s revealed that there are patches of very high radar reflection near the [55] poles. Although ice is not the only possible cause of these reflective regions, astronomers believe it is [56] the most likely. The icy regions are believed to contain about 10 10 kg of ice, and may be covered by a layer [58] of regolith that inhibitssublimation. By comparison, the Antarctic ice sheet on Earth has a mass of about 18 16 [57] 410 kg, and Mars's south polar cap contains about 10 kg of water. The origin of the ice on Mercury is not yet known, but the two most likely sources are from outgassing of water from the planet's interior or [57] deposition by impacts of comets. Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; it does have a "tenuous surface[59] bounded exosphere" containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and others. This exosphere is not stableatoms are continuously lost and replenished from a variety of sources. Hydrogen and helium atoms probably come from thesolar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space. Radioactive decay of elements within Mercury's crust is another source of helium, as well as sodium and potassium. MESSENGER found high proportions of calcium, helium,hydroxide, magnesium, oxygen, potassium, silicon and sodium. Water vapor is present, released by a combination of processes such as: comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water out of hydrogen from the solar wind and oxygen from rock, and sublimation from reservoirs of water ice in the + permanently shadowed polar craters. The detection of high amounts of water-related ions like O , OH , + [60][61] and H2O was a surprise. Because of the quantities of these ions that were detected in Mercury's space environment, scientists surmise that these molecules were blasted from the surface or exosphere [62][63] by the solar wind. Sodium, potassium and calcium were discovered in the atmosphere during the 19801990s, and are [64] believed to result primarily from the vaporization of surface rock struck by micrometeorite impacts. In [65] 2008 magnesium was discovered by MESSENGER probe. Studies indicate that, at times, sodium emissions are localized at points that correspond to the planet's magnetic poles. This would indicate an [66] interaction between the magnetosphere and the planet's surface. On November 29, 2012, NASA confirmed that images from MESSENGER had detected that craters at the north pole contained water ice. Sean C. Solomon was quoted in the New York Times as estimating
14 15 [57]

the volume of the ice as large enough to "encase Washington, D.C., in a frozen block two and a half miles [49][f] deep".

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